Overheard Conversation

One of the difficult things to accurately characterise is how much the possibility of criticism or ridicule – even here, criticism or ridicule with no ‘real world’ consequences – affects politics. Lots of people both shut up and vent privately about the circumstances which lead to their shutting up when public criticism is possible.

First Amendment Translated: You have the right to say what you want. Everyone else has the right to laugh at you.

Per comment #2: As an undergraduate progressive myself, I have to say that not all political discourse – liberal, right, progressive, socialist, whatever – is so nascent as you pretend. Yegods, you don’t need ph.d’s to say something intelligent.

So healthy discussion/disagreement includes the possibility of ridicule? Does that mean Mr. ROTC shouldn’t feel “oppressed” so long as the “heated reaction” doesn’t include outright violence? I’m just wondering where the line between chilled and not chilled gets drawn.

So when a ROTC kid disagrees with something a liberal speaker says but rather than confronting him complains to a like-minded friend, it’s “whining,” but when a professor disagrees with something a conservative student says and then rather than confronting him complains to many like-minded friends, it’s a Crooked Timber post.

Of course, Jon Mandle may have just neglected to tell us about the debate between himself and the ROTC students which later ensued, but going solely on what’s in the post above, the irony’s a little thick.

As William Shirer reminds us in chapter 25 of his seminal book: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960), American became engaged in the war in Europe when Germany declared war on America three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

Britain had become involved in the conflict by declaring war on Nazi Germany on 3 September 1939 for the failure of the German government to respond to an ultimatum calling on Germany to halt the invasion of Poland which had started on 1 September 1939.

Bob b:

I think you will find you are wrong. If you consult those great historians of our time Glenn Reynolds, and David Horowitz you will discover that Britain and the US declared war on Germany for purely philanthropic moral reasons (perhaps because of Germany’s human rights violations) as soon as it was possible for them to do so, and fought World War 2 in an entirely ethical and moral fashion, committing no human rights violations of any sort whatsoever. (After all as Tony Blair so rightly said, the US stood alone with us during the Battle of Britain). Moreover, the only people that tried to stop them were the left wing intelligentsia, all of whom were pacifists and either on the side of Stalin or Hitler. (It must be stressed that the US and the UK fought the Germans and the Japanese on their own, and any alleged involvement by, for example, Russia or China or India in this war for freedom is simply an urban myth spread by Communists).

After the war Britain and the UK then brought democracy to the world, again, stopped only by the left wing intelligentsia, all of whom were all anti-semitic and who tried (mainly successfully) to impose Stalinist communism on the Third World.

Is that clear?

They weren’t looking for an uncontraversially just war, they were looking for a war that “solved a problem”. WWII was the first one that came to mind.

I wonder if you’re being too hard on these ROTC’s. To the extent that faculty are for most students the face of the institution, the anti-war position is largely an institutional one. Being anti-war in this environment is easy, it’s expected, it’s cheered—and heck, all the cool kids are doing it. I can understand how these students may have felt intimidated especially when challenging a speaker who I’m guessing was a more polished and skillful debater with the bulk of the crowd already on her or his side (and were a few “boo’s” all they risked; wasn’t there also the possibility of them being shouted down outright?).

And as to what these students are being taught in ROTC? In addition to a whole lot of marching up and down the square, I’d bet that being deferential and respectful to institutional superiors is way up on the list.

People forget how viciously the Poles and Czechs were treating the Germans before WWII.

Well, leaving aside the Czechs for a minute, after WWI Poland was at the end of three-quarters of a century of being the mat for the wrestling match between Prussia/Germany and Russia. Their bitterness is neither surprising nor antecedent to the German attitudes regarding Polish autonomy that culminated in invasion.

“This is what so much of the right is reduced to: crying that they’re being oppressed – these guys genuinely believed that their rights had been taken away – whenever they don’t find themselves in the majority.”

This means that US conservatives have yet to catch up with US liberals who believe that even a minority disagreeing with them is ‘stifling dissent’.

9. Did you confront them? Probably not.

Where do you draw the line on confrontation? You seem to regard interrupting the conversation of two strangers as uncontroversial. Should I therefore, instead of holding my tongue whenever I see or hear something disagreeable, inflict my views on everyone who verbally or visibly expresses opinions different to my own? Is that my prerogative?

E-tat, surely Jon could have confronted the two ROTC guys during the Q&A session they undoubtedly held after their conversation.

While it’s clear that ridiculing someone for their beliefs or arguments doesn’t interfere with their freedom of speech, I think it’s nonetheless entirely coherent to question the commitment of the ridiculers to the aims behind said freedom.

If you want the marketplace of ideas to function properly, then it’s kind of important that people are willing to put forward points of view that don’t necessarily fit with everyone else’s. Of course if those ideas are crap, then it’s also important that they be exposed as such – but it’s far from clear that knee-jerk ridicule and/or accusations that people who hold particular views are inherently evil (which is what war supporters often seem to be exposed to) are helpful here.

In this respect, I think the complainant is completely right that we should do more to welcome opposing views. If nothing else, actively engaging with them is likely to give us a much better chance of convincing their proponents that we’re right and they’re wrong.

In this respect, I think the complainant is completely right that we should do more to welcome opposing views. If nothing else, actively engaging with them is likely to give us a much better chance of convincing their proponents that we’re right and they’re wrong.

Even more vitally, it gives us an opportunity to explore the possibility that they are right and we are wrong. Opening our own ideas to refutation is both one of the hardest things to do and one of the most valuable. It helps us learn and develop our own thinking, and helps us find the truth.

This post remind me of the madeleines which inspired Proust.
Here, Jon Mandle take a few off-hand remarks by two ROTC guys.

Both Proust and Mandle produce fiction.

well, my niece says that when she was in the Army, there was no tolerance of different political points of view, especially from low-ranking units like herself. The ROTC guys just had to bide their time.

kcindc: Fair point. As I don’t personally live in the US, I tend to see more of the opposite, but everything I said obviously cuts both ways.

andrew edwards: Yes. I agree wholeheartedly. (That was actually the main point I was trying to make.) I just thought it was worthwhile noting that it’s often still in your interest to encourage opposing speech even if you don’t expect to be convinced by it at all.

k, it’s very hard to see the plank in your own eye, isn’t it?

#9 and #14 pretty much nail this one in all the right places.

My first reaction was to be surprised that ROTC guys had to reach back to WWII to find an example of an uncontroversially just war – it occurred nearly half-a-century before either of them was born. I mean, what are they teaching in ROTC these days?

We haven’t exactly covered ourselves with glory since WWII. We got stalemated in Korea, our ass handed to us in Vietnam, and from the looks of it we are about to get our asses handed to us in Iraq.

All the other conflict we have gotten ourselves into were on par with me a hundred and ninety pound man beating a five year old kid (Panama,Grenada, etc) or they have been of such caliber that we fought them thru proxies (Nicaragua, el salvador, Guatemala, chile, etc) and we are not even willing to admit that we participated in them.

“You’re in ROTC? Don’t you know that Goerge Bush is just in it for the oil and it’s all going to make him rich, this illegal war and killing innocent civilians?”
Sorry, but someone being trained to kill at George Bush’s orders *ought* to be willing to answer this sort of argument. Otherwise they’re just a tool.

Oops. Missed the preview function. That should have read
“…seem to think that it is not possible to feel that your perspective is respected…”

Jon Mandle makes some curious shifts in terms in his post.

Thr first is that the problem question was “when has war solved anything?” to which he later implies that the answer must be “uncontroversially just”.

I guess to an ethicist a “solution” must be just, but I don’t think that is either how they were using the term or the common usage.

The second case is the statement made about people not wanting to hear opposing views. This does not seem to be related to the rights of the party to speak it seems to refer to the willingness of the other party to hear. It sounds more like a statement of “what’s the use of talking when they aren’t listening?”

It seems a stretch when the Right has control of US politics (president, congress and Supreme court appointments) to say they have been “reduced to” crying that they are oppressed.

Its like saying the the Israeli lobby has been “reduced to ” crying that they are oppressed, to which I would refer Chris Bertram’s post below.

Now, of course the more extended conversation may justify the latter points with quotes not made but to me it seems more like irritation with people who assume that war is bad as a matter of faith, a conclusion waiting a circumstance.

Now for my own unjustfied transition.

If a prefer an evolutionary psychology explanation of the chickenhawk phenomenon. The more other people get killed fighting, the more likely the chickenhawk offspring will increase their share of the reproductive resources.

Radek,

Well, since we all know stereotypes are accurate that’s why they got to be stereotypes, I guess the most stupid and whiny party controls the center!

“This is what so much of the right is reduced to: crying that they’re being oppressed ”

It is not the hypocrisy in this statement which is so mind-boggling. It is the the fact that its author was so blissfully unaware of that hypocrisy.

Keywords:

Dixie Chicks,
Don’t question my patriotism,
Corporate Media,
etc.

“This is what so much of the right is reduced to: crying that they’re being oppressed ”

It is not the hypocrisy in this statement which is so mind-boggling. It is the the fact that its author was so blissfully unaware of that hypocrisy.

Where’s hypocrisy?

The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

Someone on the left can say that the right is reduced to whining – while whining himself – without being hypocritical; it’s a simple observation.

Otoh, a macho-macho militarist right-winger whining does indeed exemplify hypocrisy.

ROTC guys are militarists, I presume.

Well, to retreat from the mutual name-calling, I think the ROTC guys were indeed exemplifying a worrying characteristic of contemporary American society, but it’s one that cuts across the partisan divide. Young Americans are broadly uncomfortable with political disagreement and debate. They are unfamiliar with how to conduct such debate in a civil fashion, and that leads them to fear engaging in public disagreement; it feels like an obnoxious thing to do, in American society, to openly disagree with someone you’re having a conversation with, on political grounds.

This reluctance to publicly disagree goes hand in hand with the viciousness of political debate in the US.

Britain has a far longer tradition of political discussion and disagreement, and the habit of engaging in debate while remaining civil is more deeply ingrained. It might be nice to bring some young Brits over the US to show Americans how to have a civil discussion with someone you strongly disagree with. (Of course, the effort may be utterly wasted on collegiates, for many of whom the entire point of encountering someone with whom you disagree is to seize an opportunity for boastful self-absorbed grandstanding.)

In Murray’s case, yeah, he did.

brooksfoe- from where I sit it’s the post-Gingrich leadership of the Republican Party that’s primarily responsible for bringing the 60s-bombthrowing-radical style into the mainstream of US political discourse, and the blatant and appalling mendacity of the neo-Nixonian Bush Administration in even the smallest matters has completed the degradation of that discourse.

“This is what so much of the right is reduced to: crying that they’re being oppressed”

Good heavens. You might want to look up the phrase “stifling dissent” and see how it is actually used.

Recent ‘victims’ include:

Janeane Garofalo
Michael Moore
Dixie Chicks
Susan Sarandon

Now I really think it would have been better if the ROTC members had said something. They should be willing to challenge the establishment rhetoric on campus. But it looks silly to turn their personal unwillingness into a cult of victimhood while apparently being unaware of the way “stifling my dissent” games actually get played.

Hey, pie cooling – “sociobiologist” is too a word. Get a dictionary, dummy. (“Dictionary” is a word too. So is “ridicule.”)

Martin James offers

an evolutionary psychology explanation of the chickenhawk phenomenon. The more other people get killed fighting, the more likely the chickenhawk offspring will increase their share of the reproductive resources.

Could be. But then, here’s Edward Luttwak in the LRB:

in the words of the military historian Martin van Creveld, ‘men love war and women love warriors.’ That he is right cannot be doubted because, with few exceptions, wars throughout history have been fought by volunteers, … and men would certainly have found other diversions if warriors had not been especially attractive to women. There is also a corollary: when women love warriors, they procreate sufficiently to replace the losses of war – and that too cannot be doubted, for otherwise we would not be here.

There is indeed an evolutionary pyshology story about everything — but I’m not sure if “explain” is the right word for what they do.

Wow! Did you see that peace march in Los Angeles over the weekend! Wow, the youth have finally got it together, finally speaking up for their beliefs. I mean, it looked like hundreds of thousands in the pictures. I even had a flashback, this guy in a rubber Nixon mask came at me, good thing I had my ROTC maglite. Ya know, without the draft I was starting to believe that the marchers of the 60s and 70s were just draft dodgers wrapping themselves in a mantle of high ideals, but now that I see all these hundreds of thousands of anti-war marchers, and these kids aren’t subject to the draft, well, it is high ideals after all! My bad.

Just give peace a chance, is all we are asking,
Bro. Bartleby