August 8, 2014

"Human beings crave order and simplicity. We cling to the hope that some day, if we really refine our world view and beliefs..."

"... we can actually find the fully correct way to think — the absolute truth and final side to stand on. People and systems craving power take advantage of this desire and pit us against each other using a 'this or that' mentality. The point is to create unrest, disagreement, resentment, and anger — a population constantly at war with itself, each side deeply believing that the other is not just wrong, but also a sincere threat to their very way of life and survival. This creates constant anxiety and distraction — the perfect conditions for oppression. The goal of this sort of politics is to keep people held down and mesmerized by a persistent parade of seemingly life-or-death debates, each one worth all of our emotional energy and primal passion."

From a surprising answer by Village Voice columnist Andrew W.K. to a question from a young left-winger about the problem that is his father's being a right-wing asshole.

68 comments:

Birches said...

The comments over there are scary. BUT EVIL REPUBLICAN!!!!1!!!

Conserve Liberty said...

With age one learns to be content with having gotten into the neighborhood of an ordered life, and with the idea that the neighborhood will change over time.

Nonapod said...

It's easier to hate some person or some group if you can simplify them and dehumanize them. Humans are very good at that. It's much more difficult to attempt to understand a person with opposing views to your own. Why do they think the way they do? Why they believe the things they believe? What life experiences have they been through that have shaped these beliefs? It's very difficult to do that without being dismissive.

Seeing Red said...

Or his son is a left-wing asshole.

Brian said...

A rule, from hard-won personal experience:

Consider: if you were in deep trouble or real pain, who would you cry out for? Who would get out of bed at midnight and set out across the desert to come to your side? If your politics --- or money or any other mortal-coil triviality --- is damaging your relationship with one of the people on that list, then your priorities are broken. Fix them now --- because one day you will hurt, and you will cry out, and if no one comes it will only be because you failed to build the kind of ties that would have drawn them to you.

Thus endeth the sermon.

Sal said...

"And if you do pick a side, pick the side of love."

Transcendental Peace Man could not have said it better.

SteveR said...

Shorter answer-- Why are you trying to reform your father? Next becomes--Why are you still trying to reform your father. Then becomes--I wished we had become closer before he died.

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

lol. Right wing assholes?

Ah, no.

It is the positions of the Left that are metaphysically naive and shallow, incredibly harmful, and morally and logically indefensible.

What a joke.

CatherineM said...

Andrew is cool. He is often on Red Eye (on Faux News maaaan!) and he seems to have his stuff together.

n.n said...

It will never happen. The natural order is a chaotic process. Our own lives throughout our evolution from conception to death are chaotic. The only chance of forming a universal consensus on every conceivable or even significant point is to undergo a universal-1 lobotomy. There can be only one.

As for what humans crave, it is dissociation of risk, which could be characterized as a universal order or simplicity; but, religion (i.e. moral philosophy) is not it, since it cramps people's lifestyles. And the philosophers, whether divine or mortal, demand strict adherence for a normal outcome.

pm317 said...

Wow, that is surprising and have been waiting for someone to whack the lefties with this kind of talk. I think they have gone too far in dividing and alienating various groups and of course all approved and sanctioned by the head Democrat.

Robert Cook said...

"lol. Right wing assholes?

"Ah, no.

"It is the positions of the Left that are metaphysically naive and shallow, incredibly harmful, and morally and logically indefensible.

"What a joke."


And so someone presents himself as a perfect illustration of Andrew W.K.'s very astute observation in action.

CatherineM said...

The comments sections is priceless. Even one said, "How's your gig on Red Eye working out for you?" in all caps. Missing AWK's point entirely. Why should he ignore a larger audience than that of 8pm primetime CNN/MSNBC because it's FAUX NEWS!

Forest/trees?

Anonymous said...

It's an admirably open-minded answer, to be sure, but it also reveals that even the author himself can't escape what he's describing:

"People and systems craving power take advantage of this desire and pit us against each other using a "this or that" mentality."

So it's all of us open-minded, clarity-seeking, loving people, against THOSE POWER-CRAVERS OVER THERE.

Nonapod said...

So it's all of us open-minded, clarity-seeking, loving people, against THOSE POWER-CRAVERS OVER THERE

To be fair, I don't think he's trying to demagogue a particular group with this statement, it's just a general observation about humans and human systems. To state that humans crave power isn't being closed minded necessarily.

Mark said...

The point about using alienation as a tool to gain or keep power is a good one. To see the two most recent illustrations one only need look at both establishment Republicans' and Democrats' treatments of Libertarians and Tea Party identifiers. Evangelicals got the treatment good and hard in the 80s. Groups only escape demonization if they can be thorougly co-opted (LGBT evangelical illustrate) or prove totally ineffectual (the Occupy Something cohort.)

Birkel said...

A mature individual comes to terms with the fact that all the attempts to impose order on chaos are futile. We learn to accept the unknown and the unknowable. We learn that attempting to find a unifying theory of all things is a waste of effort.

Conservatives see a world of uncertainty and think "Lots of small wrong decisions are better than one large wrong decision that affects the multitudes" and want smaller government so bad decisions are contained and feedback mechanisms for gaining the insight not to do the wrong thing again are maintained. Liberals want "experts" to make the one decision that inevitably will shit-hammer everybody except the well connected while feedback mechanisms get broken.

Long experience says consolidated power ends poorly everywhere and in all cases.

Unknown said...

Waiting on Crack to comment on white people here somehow.

mccullough said...

It seems that many people crave near constant agitation. Other people make a good buck exploiting this.

ALP said...

This is a longer version of what I tell people when they ask why I won't discuss politics: if we fight among ourselves, the politicians WIN.

holdfast said...

"So it's all of us open-minded, clarity-seeking, loving people, against THOSE POWER-CRAVERS OVER THERE."


Yup, those Power-Cravers being the "insiders" who run all the major parties in pretty much any country you might care to think of. I might believe (as I do) that putting the GOP Power-Cravers into power will be a little bit less bad for the country than installing the DEM Power-Cravers, but let's not kid ourselves about the nature of most people who make politics a career.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Lie Lie Lie.

If the other side is wrong on any conceivable point, then accuse them of, essentially, being you.

This goes back to American legal systems which put rich, disgusting lawyers in charge of all lawyers.

Any attorney making a false statement in court ought be disbarred.

The assumption should be, as Kings of the Universe, the all-knowledgeable expert attorneys know the truth and are obfuscating for one reason: personal gain through the professional ranks.

Look, I had the head of the WI Bar Assocation, when he told us this based on my quesion many years ago, that lawyers can't lie or bend the truth in court.

That's bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

So my attempt to find truth was fucked by some asshole lawyer concerned about profit and prestige, not discovering what the concept of truth is able to reveal.

damikesc said...

I knew the guy was a deeper thinker than he appeared (he's on Red Eye a lot), but that was a really solid piece o' advice.

I have to use that a lot with my in-laws and with my own mother. We disagree on a lot of things and it's frequently difficult to recognize they are more than their ideas.

Quaestor said...

Any attorney making a false statement in court ought be disbarred.

WHOOOSH!

Apparently a high-speed something traveling at low altitude passed over NotquiteunBuckley's head without his noticing.

Thinking like that is why Rumpole eschewed becoming a Queer Customer, and carried on as a quite elderly Junior.

Michael K said...

I am the father in that story and cannot talk to my left wing son about politics. I don't try to convert him because I know it will never happen. Many years ago we used to have interesting conversations about such things as Athenian Democracy but he is ever so much more sure he is right about things than I am so we don't talk anymore.

It's too bad but I have other children, one left wing, who will still discuss things with me. It's his loss and I wonder if he will ever say, "-I wished we had become closer before he died."

Guildofcannonballs said...

Facts making my truth better than yours:

1. At aged /blank/ I read Huxley's Point Counter Point*.

Also a few concise paperbacks in a series of books with the premise POINT: COUNTERPOINT. The style was an argument for and then an argument against some concept per chapter.

One of the chapters was on a lawyer "arguing a false case" or something or other.

Yes, that something or other I have come to blame on the system rather than (my) memory nearly two decades hence.

This was in Memorial Library.


*And you bet your ass I want a pat on the back.

Kirk Parker said...

Althouse,

Why do you say "surprising"? Is Andrew W. K. a well-known ideologue or something? (Not by me, else I wouldn't be asking.)

The Crack Emcee said...

"We must fully accept that we are killing people just as fully human as ourselves, and not some evil abstract creatures."

HELLOOOOOOOOO, WHITE PEOPLE!!!

Go on, there's an opening for you:

You get to "accept" shit,...

Opinh Bombay said...

I'm thinking of the Noah "Soggie" Sweat alcohol speech.

If by "Right Wing Asshole" you mean an bigoted, mean spirited, misogynistic, homophobic, racist hating bigot then I'm with you.

But if you mean an easy going, small government, small 'r' republican, who wants to limit the size, scope and power of the Federal Government as the Constitution calls for.... well, I'm really with you on that one.

...when I say dumb ass liberal and I frequently do, I mean a person who wants to use coercive power of the government to force me to do things that are supposed to be good for me.

Anonymous said...

Hey Crack, I accept that I am killing you. Now what? I'm still not giving you any money.

I accept that, by getting up in the morning with my big white dick and slapping black people around with it all day, I am killing them. And you.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Always did like Andrew WK and his letter is a model of sense -- from a pop star at that!

Anonymous said...

I'm curious, Professor: when Crack shows up on THIS PARTICULAR THREAD with a picture of some black person hanging in the 19th century (it looks like), and says that this has some relevance for the "WHITE PEOPLE" contributing to your comment section -- do you take him seriously at all?

If so, why?

If not, do you think it's funny, or disturbing, or a bit of both?

Quaestor said...

Kirk Parker wrote: Althouse, Why do you say "surprising"? Is Andrew W. K. a well-known ideologue or something?

Perhaps the surprising part is not so much the writer as the publication, the reliably left-wing fever swamp known as The Village Voice. In fairness I must note that Nat Hentoff occasionally wanders out of the lowering gloom and into the sunlight.

Quaestor said...

DS wrote: I'm curious, Professor...

Perhaps it this: Crack seems willing and able to waste hours of his day trying to degrade the conversation here to his diseased level. The fact that he's generally ignored is may be a point of pride à chez Meadehouse.

bgates said...

I accept that I am killing you.

Between 1980 and 2008 there were over twenty three thousand more white homicide victims killed by black people in America than black homicide victims killed by white people. 2.36 white homicide victims of blacks for every one black homicide victim of whites.

Per Wikipedia, "The Tuskegee Institute has recorded 3,446 blacks and 1,297 whites being lynched between 1882 and 1968".

Unknown said...

Blogger Michael K, there are more of us than you think. My son (26 yeas old) told my wife last year that we are no longer his family, that he gets to choose his family. We are ignorant, Bible thumping Christians, and that's philosophically counter to his world view.

The Godfather said...

When I read the paragraph that Althouse posted, I was ready to disagree, but having read the whole piece, I'm on board.

I'm pretty conservative/libertarian, and I have a lot of friends who . . . how shall I put this? . . . aren't. They are good people (if they weren't, they wouldn't be my friends) who are wrong on some important policy issues -- or maybe I'm wrong? Naah! Couldn't be. Am I going to give up friends or family because they have the wrong politics? I'm not such a fool.

Ann Althouse said...

Surprising, because this sort of question is usually responded to with advice about how to avoid bad conversations, make better conversation, or shun the offender.

It's so confrontational, so long, and so demanding of real love. The writer got so serious, and the paragraph I quoted is on a particularly high level of critique.

The Crack Emcee said...

DS,

"I'm curious, Professor: when Crack shows up on THIS PARTICULAR THREAD with a picture of some black person hanging in the 19th century (it looks like), and says that this has some relevance for the "WHITE PEOPLE" contributing to your comment section -- do you take him seriously at all?"

I'm not going to answer for Ann, but definitely want to clear a few things up - like I started with a quote:

"We must fully accept that we are killing people just as fully human as ourselves, and not some evil abstract creatures."

How is that relevant to WHITE PEOPLE like you?

Well, for starters, that is not "a picture of some black person hanging in the 19th century" (AKA white's "abstract creatures" from "ancient history") but a picture from Tuesday, May 31, 1921, when whites went on a murderous rampage to lynch a 19-year old black kid named Dick Rowland.

That is not a photo of Dick Rowland. That's of another black the whites killed - they killed many that day - and hung up in the town square as a warning. Whites also liked to hang black bodies at train stations, so blacks knew not to get off at that stop. Such photos were sold as postcards.

That is American culture, and it's formed white's behavior as surely as it has black's, right down to you pretending you don't know WHAT anybody black could be talking about slavery in America for. I mean, it's just dominated the majority of the country's history - this land has still been slave longer than it's been free since whites got here - why would anybody talk about it?

And one more thing - THIS PARTICULAR THREAD - that irks me. Tell me:

When you come from a culture that made your people sleep at the foot of the bed or, on cold nights, act as your "bed warmer" (and one you can rape as well) is there a topic whites can claim is off-limits for a discussion of slavery?

I mean, we're already pretty intimate, don't you think?

Whites are how all those black Der Weinersnitchel rumors got started.

It certainly wasn't from blacks, looking at each other, and saying "DAMN!"

We didn't ask for that kind of fetishization either.

Are you SURE this is the wrong thread?

Or are you just not "accepting" yet?

Most people fail the first time...

Anonymous said...

Crack, do you feel embarrassed for responding like that? Obviously I'm just making fun of you for being crazy.

You're ridiculous. You're a figure of fun. And I can't imagine any minorities I know taking you seriously either.

The Crack Emcee said...

Unknown,

"Blogger Michael K, there are more of us than you think."

Jesus, you two, you're losing your kids - and hounding blacks online - while telling yourselves you're the All-Knowing Orbs or something. Why don't you stop?

Fuck, it's hard to feel sorry for assholes,...

The Crack Emcee said...

DS,

"I can't imagine any minorities I know taking you seriously either."

That's because you don't know any minorities,...

Anonymous said...

Crack, I have never seen anyone, black brown or white, be such a fool in public as you. A court jester, a street bum, and a schizophrenic all balled up in one sad but hilarious package.

Anonymous said...

Nonapod, holdfast, I actually don't disagree with either of your interpretations. We absolutely do have to make choices, and I don't think that Andrew W.K. (whose "Party Hard" btw has been a staple on my playlists for years) is wrongheaded or an idiot or anything for what he wrote. It's a great piece. But I think it tells us something about human nature that even someone so committed to being open-minded still posits an "other" that we are defining ourselves against. Not a partisan "other" (admirably), but an other nonetheless.

Mark said...

When I get into political arguments with Progressives, I often point out that I really would like to see the same end-results they want to see (no poverty, ample opportunity, great personal liberty, safety and security in property and in self) but that I just don't think their prescriptions lead to any of that.

Like the Beatles sang some time ago:
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't gonna make it with anyone, anyhow

Guildofcannonballs said...

What are the odds you got this the 888enth millitionth time?

Lie Lie Lie.

If the other side is wrong on any conceivable point, then accuse them of, essentially, being you.

This goes back to American legal systems which put rich, disgusting lawyers in charge of all lawyers.

Any attorney making a false statement in court ought be disbarred.

The assumption should be, as Kings of the Universe, the all-knowledgeable expert attorneys know the truth and are obfuscating for one reason: personal gain through the professional ranks.

Look, I had the head of the WI Bar Assocation, when he told us this based on my quesion many years ago, that lawyers can't lie or bend the truth in court.

That's bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

So my attempt to find truth was fucked by some asshole lawyer concerned about profit and prestige, not discovering what the concept of truth is able to reveal.

8/8/14, 1:55 PM

Brent said...

A long time friend from college is a left wing, loves-Rachel-Maddow liberal. She often posts on Facebook her political views that I cannot, as a conservative, "like" or agree to, though non-political posts from her often hysterical and a joy to read.

But yesterday, she posted this article and I was absolutely fascinated by it.

Hopeful for us all.

JPS said...

I've read posts about this column on two of my favorite blogs now. A lot of people like it. Quite a few don't.

I'd be curious to know the ratio of the following responses. Probably tough to ascertain over the self-selection bias:

1) "That's right! There are more important things than politics, and if you're estranged from family over it your priorities are way out of whack!"

versus

2) "All well and good, but those fuckers deserve it!"

among liberals versus conservatives.

Brando said...

The son sounds like a worthless piece of crap. The response was spot on.

If you can't respect and get along with those who think different from you--if you have to make them evil in your mind--then you're outside the realm of rational discourse and should be taken seriously by no one.

Clark said...

Crack, with the Whites!!!! Whites!!!!

Jesus, you're boring.

Fuck. Shut up already. We get it.

Brando said...

I also like "he's ruining the environment". So when your dad isn't saying right wing things he's dumping sewage directly into our rivers? The ghoul! Why are you not reporting him you self important popinjay???

Michael K said...

""Blogger Michael K, there are more of us than you think."

Jesus, you two, you're losing your kids - and hounding blacks online - while telling yourselves you're the All-Knowing Orbs or something. Why don't you stop?

Fuck, it's hard to feel sorry for assholes,..."

Crack, you are a fool and that is all there is to it.

I'm not "losing" my kids. One of five kids is alienating himself from the others and it is sad. I think he has a combination of left wing ideology and weird religious obsession. I feel sorry for him as I feel sorry for so many young people who are unhappy and whose lives will be blighted by the idiots we have running the country.

The 100th anniversary of WWI is reverberating this summer.

You I don't feel sorry for as you seem to be beyond reason and obsessed with race. Thomas Sowell speaks about you when he says, "I am so old, I remember when racists were white."

richard mcenroe said...

"Also a few concise paperbacks in a series of books with the premise POINT: COUNTERPOINT. The style was an argument for and then an argument against some concept per chapter.

One of the chapters was on a lawyer "arguing a false case" or something or other."

Goes all the way back to Aristotle's "Just and Unjust Discourse."

Kirk Parker said...

Quaestor,

Give credit where it is due! Isn't Hentoff almost always a voice of sanity? I don't agree with everything he says (though mostly, in my hearing at least, he's blabbering about civil liberties so I DO agree with him!) but even when I don't he still comes off as a genuine sane person.

David said...

Gates:

3446/86=40.

That's a black person being lynched on average about every 10 days over 86 years.

Those were the total lynchings, not the total murders, of blacks by whites. Lynching was message intensive, but Emmett Till and thousands of others were just as dead.

How can we makes amends for that?

How about starting by acknowledging the horror of it, rather than minimizing or making meaningless comparisons?

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

I'd add that the point of television news and political blogs is to keep people from changing their minds. Whatever happens, it can be explained in a way that reinforces what people already believe. The people that are good at explaining things make a lot of money.

The reason they make a lot of money is because their audience wants to avoid thinking for themselves.

It's a symbiotic relationship.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"WHOOOSH!

Apparently a high-speed something traveling at low altitude passed over NotquiteunBuckley's head without his noticing.

Thinking like that is why Rumpole eschewed becoming a Queer Customer, and carried on as a quite elderly Junior."

Your POTUS was elected for one reason: law worship.

Like Mark Steyn says, instead of a King or Queen you worship Law.

Fuck off.

I am correct and your unsophisticated misunderstandings are, one day you'll see, of your own making.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Quaestor

Bitch, since you have been unable to identify the cancer, I shall do it on your behalf (gimp).

Law.

All but Jimmy Carter are lawyers in Democrat circles.

You worship the law and you shall, I hope, not suffer the consequences of your obedience.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Go ahead and say it, bitch:

Obama and Biden are the exception because they are lawyers.

Gore and Clinton are exceptions because they too attended law school.

Those opposing Reagan from the Democrat isle were lawyers for the most part.

Your support of this Nazi law regime speaks louder than your words bitch.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Fucking Nazi's.

Guildofcannonballs said...

How could one be more inhumane than dismissing Nazi talk as outside the bounds? At least Nazi's engaged reality to a horrible end. Not like those who refuse to see what they did.

The Nazi's were real.

ISIS is real.

These people exist, not because of my opposition to gay marriage.

THIS.

Guildofcannonballs said...

It is logical for gay marriage supporters to have their opinions.

This is something not in accord with the most base "logic."

Yet as humans, striving for more (which is the difference between civil unions and "marriage") is what we need to celebrate.

The getting there is the thing; not union cunt boss ends.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Some will think and conclude merely chance, that I get to speak my peace unmoderated.

Not I.

Does that matter?

Guildofcannonballs said...

This is a link of, by, to, and for, Lorrie Morgan.

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

Robert Cook said...
"lol. Right wing assholes?

"Ah, no.

"It is the positions of the Left that are metaphysically naive and shallow, incredibly harmful, and morally and logically indefensible.

"What a joke."

And so someone presents himself as a perfect illustration of Andrew W.K.'s very astute observation in action.


Really, Cook? Then time to put up or shut up.

Present me with a position of the Left, one that you also hold, that contrast with what you think the Right's position is, and offer a little defense of it, as a starting point.

I will then attempt to show it to be naive and shallow, incredibly harmful, and morally and logically indefensible.

Game on.

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael K,

"Thomas Sowell speaks about you when he says, "I am so old, I remember when racists were white.""

Thomas Sowell. Jay-Z. Obama even.

The listing of well-to-do blacks to make the less-than-well-to-do feel,...what? Like we haven't "made it" to a sufficient level for whites to appreciate our words?

You poor baby.

You forget that, when even Obama and a multi-millionaire like Oprah agree with me, you scoff, too - so what is your judgement worth, when it's obvious you'll change like the wind?

You're the "real conservative" who was trying to push a squish like Mitt Romney on us, and I'm supposed to take you seriously - as a conservative?

You followed Ted Cruz over the cliff, and destroyed the Republican Party politically in the process, and I'm supposed to take you seriously - as a conservative?

Go count your money, Man, it's the only impressive thing about you,...

Guildofcannonballs said...

The GOP, as much as I hate it, will dominate the foreseeable future. Anyone unable to offer a semblance of an argument as to why all the numbers are wrong risks the stigma of stupid.

Risk risk risk.

Guildofcannonballs said...

I would appreciate the opportunity to thank Richard McEnroe for the Aristotle.