I blame Dick Wolf. Mebbe Jacques Derrida, too.
Derrida you can look up for yourself, but Wolf is of course the mastermind of the 68 versions of Law & Order, an episode of which is airing right now somewhere on cable regardless of when you're reading this.
In this course of my work, I lunched today with a grizzled litigator, a "trial dog," who in his younger days prosecuted and convicted Sam the Plumber DeCavalcante, a pretty big fish in the New Jersey Mafia.
His take on trial technique is that you find a hole in the other side's story, and you win. What if you're prosecuting, I asked. Same deal, he replied. Even when you have the burden of proof, you bullseye the other guy.
Ah, it occurred to me. That's what's happened to social intercourse. We're all lawyers now. We no longer hold joint inquiries looking for truth, like the old days of Socrates, symposia or the original Reform Club, whose members included polar opposites GK Chesterton and GB Shaw.
We look to prove the other guy wrong. That a flawed argument can contain more truth than the polished but limited one is an alien concept. A man's reach must equal his grasp, and may not exceed it, or else he is an idiot or a liar. We don't search for truth together anymore---truth is a solitary pursuit, and everybody else is our adversary.
To me that's a shame, because the Symposium, the original Reform Club, and the Algonquin Roundtable were parties, not an excuse to inflict one's misery upon others. Knock back a few, dress in women's clothing (in drag, I look a little like Susan Estrich), make a few bad puns, consider the universe, and mebbe walk away with something of lasting value or in the least, a good buzz.
I suppose there was a good time to be had at a public execution back in the day, although why escapes me. We put the truth on trial at all times these days, and it is always guilty. It's not surprising nobody says nothing anymore, because the hangman always wins. Everybody gets what they came for.
15 comments:
Obviously, someone got what he came for.
As Stephen Colbert once said: "Forget your facts... I'm going with the truth!"
This is how I often feel when experiencing the utter semantics of many of the Right's arguments. No facts, just pure, unadulterated belief.
Ouch, Connie. First I get (predictably yet still ironically) Law & Ordered, and now you Derrida me.
I wrote nothing of the kind---I'd be overjoyed if Democrats called Republicans ugly, instead of evil. I'd love it if the Left rediscovered its sense of humor, but I fear it's dead and gone, strangled at the hands of PC.
No, what I'm asking for is principled counterargument instead of spitballs from the gallery. For instance, I've heard enough of what shouldn't have been done with Saddam and Iraq, but precious little of what should, besides the unacceptable Clinton status quo of alternately doing nothing and starving their children.
There's certainly a place for trashing risable arguments, like the one that calls for violating Afghanistan's sovereignty by chasing al-Qaeda while leaving the ruling Taliban in place, but there's more to inquiry and the search for truth than spitballs and trash. Life's too short to spend one's time in the dirt.
I'm looking for affirmative visions, instead of negation or the endless nihilism/relativism of "well, that's just your opinion."
"Ouch, Connie. First I get (predictably yet still ironically) Law & Ordered, and now you Derrida me."
For this, you must be neutered and given a pair of cement flippers and no snorkel. I'm sorry, but it's the only way to save future generations.
"'d be overjoyed if Democrats called Republicans ugly, instead of evil."
Why settle for the one when you can have both?
"I'd love it if the Left rediscovered its sense of humor, but I fear it's dead and gone, strangled at the hands of PC."
On what planet? Oh, because Dennis Miller is soooo much funnier than Jon Stewart? Or are you saying Ann Coulter's brand of mendacious polemics qualifies as wit these days? If that's funny, I'll stick with PC, which doesn't make my ears bleed.
"I'm looking for affirmative visions, instead of negation or the endless nihilism/relativism of "well, that's just your opinion.""
Well, that's just your opinion. And we all know how often you're wrong. Stop trying to conflate visions you disagree with with nihilism. It's demeaning. To you.
Thank you all for your kind advice on what I should think and how I should write.
I apologize that I'm not interested in debunking ideas I find laughable. I'm also not interested in being told what ideas I should find interesting and how and to what I should respond.
I am not particularly interested in being parsed, and even less interested in parsing others. I am not interested in arguing and neither am I interested in indulging those who argue and take advantage of my politeness.
The one shining virtue of the rude sophist Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic is that he is in the end a good guest who does not hog the conversation and knows when to get out of someone's face. Had he not, instead of ten books, Republic would have only one, the same thing over and over again.
That would not have been interesting. Word up.
the original Reform Club, whose members included polar opposites GK Chesterton and GB Shaw
But Chesterton and Shaw were not polar opposites in one essential respect. They both subscribed, probably unconsciously and implicitly, to a code of honorable behavior that required a member of a gentlemen's club to act as a gentleman. Chesterton and Shaw could only go at it hammer and tongs because they felt no duty, for example, to admit Mehmed Talaat into the smoking room for a cozy chat about the Armenians.
Such considerations enacted today brand one an elitist or a jackbooted censor. Ironic, is it not, that the restriction of speech in is some respects a necessary condition for free speech to flourish.
For this, you must be neutered and given a pair of cement flippers and no snorkel. I'm sorry, but it's the only way to save future generations.
Come on. That's meant to be funny. Well, it's the poor humorist who blames the audience for not getting the joke, so I'm sorry if you felt attacked.
I apologize that I'm not interested in debunking ideas I find laughable. I'm also not interested in being told what ideas I should find interesting and how and to what I should respond.
I feel a strong need to address this both because it really bothers me and because I feel that it is an issue fundamental to the ideological divide in this country.
It is precisely because of this belittlement of other ideas and a condescending disinclination to engage that nothing ever gets done on either side of the aisle. You're disinclination to lend other ideologies or ideas credence sets you up for a similar reception. You perceive Leftist ideals as nihilism, yet shake your head in wonder when Leftists such as myself, LA, or Tlaloc find free-market boosterism laughably naive (as just one example). This sets up a perfect circle of denigration and condescension.
I don't come here just because I enjoy vigorous debate, being rude, and being insulted or condescended to. I also come here because I honestly want to engage and be engaged. My views improve and evolve when I have to reason and explain them, and if they are indefensible, I have to figure out how and why and reevaluate them.
The hypocrisy, Tom, is that you insist upon this from us Leftist commentators, but refuse to engage in it yourself, rather citing opposing ideas as laughable rather than considering their merits. I get the sense that you (and by no means would you be alone in this if I am correct) view dissent and contradiction as a personal affront on some level. Your response is to attempt to elevate yourself above what you view as an attack. Unfortunately, that doesn't solve the issue, it merely makes you look pompous. Believe me, I struggle with the same thing.
"I don't come here just because I enjoy vigorous debate, being rude, and being insulted or condescended to. I also come here because I honestly want to engage and be engaged. My views improve and evolve when I have to reason and explain them, and if they are indefensible, I have to figure out how and why and reevaluate them."
I think we can all agree with that, and I'll add that it helps me to be reminded that the people on the other side have good [if misguided:)] intentions.
By the way, this is the internet...an insult or two is not the end of the world, and I have a hard time believing that the original Reform Club members didn't slip in an occaisional jab.
Mr. Tlaloc, I do not engage with you because one should not fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel. And cyberink is free.
You are not content, like Thrasymachus, with a demurral for the record; you stay in people's faces until you are yielded the last word out of disgust or fatigue. The comments sections of this blog are littered to bursting with the evidence of that.
By hiding behind a non de plume, you also hold--and take--advantage of those who sign their names to what they write, who have reputations to guard. They cannot answer you in kind with the incivility that has become your custom.
Further, I was not writing about you in my original essay. But that I find your opinions largely unworthy of discussion let alone debate is my right: whether about war or Wal-mart, they are almost exclusively moralistic, and your own morality is self-admittedly idiosyncratic. We do not share a common language, nor do you seek to achieve one with me or anyone else. I find your moralizing as tiresome and irrelevant as you would find Jerry Falwell's.
Any society is built on a certain commonality of purpose, and has a right to choose its own members. Your position is one of standing on the periphery of a conversation; if your interjections further the discussion, you may be included. If not, you are being intrusive and boorish.
And James, I was not offended at what I took to be your attempts at humor. And it would be presumptuous to tell you what is and isn't funny, what to write and what not to write, especially if I were commenting on your blog. I ask only that you accord me, and more importantly my fellows, the same gentility.
Ah, spreadin' the gospel, holding prayer meetings with your co-religionists in my living room, and foisting your (ersatz) morality on others.
Sort of a Jehovah's Witness of relativism, except even they buzz off sometimes. (More like that Hare Krishna in Airport.)
I don't know much about your catechism, but from I've gathered, that's as close to a mortal sin as it gets, at least when committed by others.
The ironies increase geometrically.
Tom, I wonder if you could take a step back and look at what you just wrote there. Tlaloc and I both attempted to engage you on this point, and while the language may have been blunt, it was never rude. You chose, instead, to stick with the semantic "holier-than-thou" game rather than get your hands dirty with the ink of real discourse.
Can you perhaps see how such empty, self-righteous (nay, prideful) moralizing completely undermines your writing except to those who already share your point of view? If your only goal is to preach to the choir and have your ego fellated by those of like-minds, you should disengage from commenters entirely and give up these pompous self-gratifying assertions; assertions, I might add, you blithely choose not to defend, rather placing your faith in others to do so for you or ignoring the naysayers. Your responses smack of the overeducated's version of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing Mary Had a Little Lamb. You call us on it, which is appropriate (and I don't much care how you do it).
The hypocrisy is when you decide that the only motivation for a dissenter to do so is a belligerent desire for ideological pugilism and take your moralizing high ground. It's frankly arrogant and blindingly unintelligent. It smacks of unwarranted certainty, and that paints you as a zealot and not a thinker.
You could be entirely correct in your opinion of me, and of the Right, and what I should and shouldn't say, and various other things you have written. But you are talking past me and now my pearls are buried beneath a mountain of goo that no sane third party would continue reading.
My colleague Ms. Hutchins correctly observed (and predicted) that any disinclination to wallow and muck about will be viewed as elitism.
I believe that if I were interested in parsing as I've been parsed, I could get the better of this or most any argument. But then I would be arguing, the very thing my original argument sought an alternative to, as it's something I'm not very interested in.
To be engaged, one must engage, and simple disagreement is not engagement. The soul of debate is to prove error; the soul of discussion and joint inquiry is that some truths are larger than others.
Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?
That was a joke, James. A quick reading of my canon here indicates I'm a lover, not a fighter. If someone wishes to engage me, he (and preferably a she) need only speak the language of love. ;-)
TVD ... great thread. You have affirmed many of my thoughts and feelings (yes, feelings) as to when to use ink and when not to.
If there is one thing that I have learned here, it is when to just move on.
Besides, Matt Huisman rocks! :)
Well, thanks for filing a response, Connie. I don't blame you for not wading through it all. My view is that this all got pear-shaped because some of us were reading from old scripts.
I wasn't doing a Rodney King "can't we all get along" thing, yet another bland call for civility. (My philosophy is that if you can't be civil, I'll either show you or myself the door.)
I was talking about a method of discourse that seems dead and gets deader every day. I was not calling for honest debate. I was calling for anything but debate.
CLA feels me. (Cheers, mate.)
I asked for discussion over debate and got debate. That's what I meant by the irony of the whole thing.
I decided to take the time, when challenged, to finally answer a correspondent directly about why I do not enjoy corresponding with him. I do not dodge direct questions; it's just that life is too short for things I find unnourishing.
We shall table Iraq for now, with your kind permission. I would love to trash the UN, but that would be counterproductive right now.
As for zingers, I shall never give them up. I can take 'em, and I render them as a substitute for things far more hurtful.
I believe that's why God invented them. Besides, they're fun. Fun is good, too.
Always nice to hear from you. The Reform Club is a better place for your presence.
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