The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. — J.D. Salinger
For some reason, this quote has been coming to my mind when I read about the rantings of the far right. And, to be clear, by “far right” in this case, I’m not talking about those who merely have policy differences with President Obama and the Democrats. I’m talking about the ones who seem to be constructing an alternate reality in response to his election: those who need to believe he was born in Kenya; those who need to believe that that he is proposing to create government mandated death panels.
And, I suppose the reason I think of that quote is because the deathers and birthers remind me of the Branch Davidians (and others with Apocalyptic religious views) and Timothy McVeigh – people who were willing, in some cases apparently eager, to die “nobly” based on delusional anti-government beliefs. And I think people get to this place because anger is a very seductive emotion. (That’s almost the whole point of the Star Wars series, right?) And “the government” is real, yet abstract, enough that it’s an entity upon which you can conveniently project all sorts of antipathy.
I remember, when I was a younger man, the sort of rush I got from arguing with a heated outrage about the evil of government action at Ruby Ridge and Waco. I had only a smattering of facts, but it didn’t matter. It was enjoyable to argue about how the government had brutally wronged citizens who had done no wrong. (And when it was pointed out that the citizens hadn’t, in fact, been on the straight and narrow, my tendency was to brush those facts away — that wasn’t, after all, the point of the exercise.) For me, my late teens/early twenties was when I seemed to be most primed for these kinds of beliefs. It was during this period I was introduced to the Salinger quote above. It made me surprisingly indignant; I suppose because it belittled as immature things that I supposed to be heroism — going out in a blaze of glory, and all of that. Oddly, I felt like something was being taken away from me even though I had no immediate plans in that direction. In retrospect, I was (as Krusty said of Sideshow Raheem) an angry, angry young man.
The peak of my own personal wingnuttery was probably when a buddy of mine showed me a news letter with poor production values talking about the tracking chips they put in pets and talking about how there was a plan afoot to put these in prisoners and soldiers and, eventually, in all citizens. I didn’t panic, but I can remember being open to the idea that something like this was maybe in the works. After that, I pulled back from the edge. The fires of late adolescence cooled, the Clinton impeachment was a severe enough jolt to my deeply held Constitutional views to make me reconsider my affinities, and the expanding Internet provided me with a greater ability to double check “facts.”
The combination of a tribal, “my team versus your team” mentality coupled with the endorphins and empowerment of anger coupled with half-known or half-understood facts and an indifference to the complete story can be powerful. The mind is a wonderful thing. Mainly, it just wants you to be happy, and it has a way of viewing reality through a filter that makes you happy — even if that happiness comes through being angry. So, you get birthers and deathers and Branch Davidians and, at the most extreme, a Timothy McVeigh or 9/11 jihadist. The maturing process involves increasing dominance of the mind over emotion. When the tendency is for one’s reality to be altered by emotion instead of the other way around, the train starts coming off the track.
This is a very insightful post. In particular, I believe your reference to “my team versus their team” captures a significant element of contemporary politics. (It certainly characterized a great deal of the rhetoric coming out of the Bush Administration, with language like ‘evil-doers’ and claims of our own moral superiority–as if entire populations could be described with such broad brushstrokes.)
At risk of similarly oversimplifying, I think there are two general motivations for political activity: this desire to “play on a team” (with its’ accompanying “my team right or wrong” loyalty); and an interest in particular issues of our collective life. Those of us who get involved because we care about constitutional issues and/or public policies join a political party based on a perception that it comes closest to our own beliefs and positions. Team players will stick with a party even after it has become something totally different than it was; the rest of us will leave that party–that “team”–when it changes its beliefs.
I’m old. The GOP I joined forty plus years ago was very libertarian; when it morphed into whatever it is now (totalitarian, theocratic, racist or just plain nuts–I can’t decide what to call the party of Glen Beck and Sarah Palin), I left. Growing up, as you note, is a process of acting on the basis of evidence, not “team loyalty.”
The government doesn’t need to put chips in us. They have just added chemicals to our water (probably through weedkiller…) which cause the population to compulsively describe all of their activities via Twitter every five minutes, and to post more detailed descriptions on facebook. Chips are so 1993.
Bwahahaha!
Fluoride.
But you have better teeth, and fewer weeds.
There’s always trade-offs…
Its remarkable to me how similar your path and mine has been politically. I started out as a Democrat becoming an activist at 17 working on the Evan Bayh for Governor campaign in 1988. After a couple of years I became the youngest precinct committeeman at the time in Marion County at the age of 20 in 1991. Worked my ass off to get Clinton elected in 1992, and then when Waco happened became disillusioned.
I left the party soon after that after first hand witnessing some local political corruption involving a special election I was involved in as a PC. I was in my angry phase at this point, and Waco was the catalyst for my anti government leanings. As a Constitutional absolutist at the time I became enamored with and started working with the Libertarians in the mid to late 90s on through until 9/11 happened. At that point I woke up from my political fever dream phase.
I realized that our beloved Constitution was in the process of being shredded in real time by the Cheney Administration and that the only folks standing in the way of martial law and a nightmarish police state were liberal Democrats whom I had been taught to loathe for their embrace of all Big Government solutions.
That’s when the epiphany hit me, my focus on civil liberties had drifted me away from libertarians and directly into the embrace of classic liberal philosophy. By the time 2004 elections rolled around I had come home to the Democrats, embracing them warts and all.
I agree with Sheila’s assessment of the differing team philosophies. Like her, my political migrations over the years are issue based. As someone who is focused on civil liberties for everyone I still have issues with Democrats who don’t embrace gay marriage. And if the D’s ever stray from the Constitution in the future I will oppose them at every turn.
“Forty plus years ago the Republican party was very libertarian”? It had, or was in the process of, hardening its position on Civil Rights, beginning with Goldwater dissolving the (largely African-American) state delegations across the South; it had, or was in the process of, becoming the party of Lawn Order, which meant opposition to even the smallest example of the Warren Court’s expansion of personal rights; it had aligned itself with incontinent military spending, unfettered US interventionalism, and every brutal dictatorship around the globe, provided it was rhetorically anti-Communist. Not to mention that Nixon was more of an economic interventionist than any succeeding Democratic president has dared to dream of being.
I just don’t see it. The modern Republican party isn’t even the bastard offspring of some mutation run wild; it was created by Nixon’s “Silent Majority” speech in 1969, following Goldwater having cleared the ground of the Rockefeller/Javits wing. It may be more monomaniacal these days, but certainly not more maniacal than it was in the 50s and 60s. It’s no more convinced of its theological perfection than it was immediately post-Roe, coupled with its self-assurance, via Reagan iconography, that its tiniest political impulse is beyond dispute and its opponents dupes, cretins, and anarcho-totalitarian Commie Nazis.
I don’t see it. I don’t see how one could be outraged, or disappointed, or even surprised by the disastrous Bush II foreign policy when one had experienced Nixon in Cambodia and Laos and Reagan/Bush I in Central America. I don’t see how you can react to Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, or Dick Cheney differently that you did to Pat Buchanan, Ed Meese or John Mitchell, or what the difference is between NRO online and the racist rag that Wm Fuh Buckley ran. Aside from High Church Latin vs. Star Wars references.
Maybe it’s easier for me, having been kicked out of the Democratic party in 1973 for having had the audacity to cast my first vote for George McGovern. Maybe it’s easier to put Waco and Ruby Ridge in perspective when you were old enough to remember Fred Hampton and People’s Park. But today’s GOP is the party I grew up with, aside from the little matter of having had twenty-five years in power and screwing up everything it touched.
You guys sure do get a lot of mileage out of McVeigh, don’t you? Seems like he always pops up whenever there is the slightest bit of opposition to one of Der Leaders “super terrific” ideas.
I would suggest the birthers, and “far right” whackos you fear are no farther off the sanity path than the 911 “truthers” or the Nation of Islam (Bush & whitey blew up the levees).
There are an equal amount of nutbags on the far left and the far right, the important thing is, those of us that are center right or center left don’t drink too much of the kool-aid offered by our respective sides.
Reality distortion isn’t confined to the right, but I would point out that you don’t have Lou Dobbs or a former Democratic V.P. candidate endorsing the idea that Bush blew up the levees.
Joh- I am completely mystified at how one’s “focus on civil liberties had drifted me away from libertarians and directly into the embrace of classic liberal philosophy”. Libertarianism and classic liberalism are one and the same.
The D’s have loads of civil liberties warts. Patriot Act? Indefinite detention? Wiretapping? Is the war in Afghanistan a constitutional war? Etc.
Doug August 30,
“Reality distortion isn’t confined to the right, but I would point out that you don’t have Lou Dobbs or a former Democratic V.P. candidate endorsing the idea that Bush blew up the levees”.
That’s a great tit for tat comment and to the point without being condescending nor having personal put-down intent..
What has bothered me for a long time is that it’s virtually impossible to discuss politics with anyone from family,or whom I know well, I don’t already agree with. Any comment is dismissed as’ liberal spin’ and I in turn I just keep quiet not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings..I fear it’s not just my family,but rather a huge communication divide in this country,generally..Pass the biscuits.. please..