Required Re-Hash of Ancient Lore: Ideological Idealism

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Over five years ago, I wrote an LJ entry provocatively titled "The Hate Comes First". The title came from an article that I quoted regarding the psychological phenomenon called "splitting." This article more thoroughly outlines the psychological causes and impacts of this tendency to demonize without analysis. Take, for example, this exposition on "splitting:"

Splitting—reducing the other person to a binary abstraction of all good or all bad, is a primitive, or regressive, defense mechanism used when the emotional level and complexity is greater than a person's capacity to interpret it. For example, once your boyfriend cheats on you, he becomes a jerk, completely. Even things he had done that were good-- like give money to the poor-- are reinterpreted in this light ("he only did that to get people to like him.") Who splits? Someone with a lot of unfocused rage and frustration, i.e. the "primitive" emotions.

Currently, our social psyche has three main targets of splitting: President Bush, terrorists, and liberals. Depending on your political bent, two of those are often conflated.

Splitting says: Bush is all bad, period. Nothing he does is good, and if it is good, it is from some malicious (or) selfish motivation, or an accident related to his incompetence to even be self-serving. Similarly on the other side, liberals are weak, corruptible, treasonous.

Splitting is always polar; once something is declared "all bad," an opposite is necessarily declared all good. Importantly, this isn't a comparison between the two-- he is bad, but she is better; it's perceived to be two independent, unconnected, assessments, even though to anyone else looking from the outside, they are so obviously linked. So hatred of, say, liberals is thought to be independent of your preference for Bush, but in reality it is only because you hate liberals that you like Bush. The hate comes first.

For some reason, I've long recognized the tendencies this article discusses, but have had a bitch of a time articulating my thoughts on the topic. Especially nowadays. It's gotten so bad I've set myself a goal: I refuse, when I can, to declare anything good or bad. "Good" and "bad" designations lead to tortured logic and train-wreck conclusions such as those noted in the article. I've found it intensely frustrating to declare myself someone who refuses to believe in Good or Evil. People naturally assume me to be nihilistic, a conclusion I find misses the point entirely. I'm just trying to analyze from a factual perspective, trying to weigh as many relevant factors as possible before reaching a judgment: Is this situation beneficial or detrimental? How can it be tweaked toward providing benefit?

---

I find myself alone, still, when it comes to the "Good or Evil: Do They Exist?" debate. Some simplifications never go out of style, as evidenced by this cartoon:



For me, there's an inherent flaw in the cartoon's message: When it comes to what motivates people, hate works better than "love." There's evidence to back this up. Lots of evidence. For example, I've long been fascinated by a story from the days just before WWII. Intrigued by how Hitler rose to power and brought Germany back from an economic basketcase, the Japanese sent some envoys to learn if the same could be done in their country. The envoys returned with bad news: What Germany did to unify the country wouldn't work in Japan because Japan, being 99% Japanese, had no Jews.

The lesson: Hate unites. People band together to fight a perceived enemy. Without an enemy, they don't band together nearly as well. Even the Free Love hippie crowd worked only because "Love is the answer" was seen as a reaction against perceived haters of love, an attitude that rallied those who hate haters, if you will. In the same way, anyone who states early and directly that they are "non-judgmental" and "accepting" often prove to be anything but; they simply need to separate themselves from those they perceive to be rigidly dogmatic and judgmental.

Here's a question: How did all those protests and sit-ins and love-ins and other-ins work out against Vietnam? Also from years ago, not so much. They may have perpetuated our conflict in Vietnam, not hastened its end.

---

First of all, let's encapsulate "protest" within definitional boundaries. I am not referring to a protest one puts in a court of law. Someone in a casual conversation, likewise, might protest a line of conversation or point made by others; this person is registering a difference of personal opinion in a social setting. No, when I talk of "protest" as a failed medium of mass persuasion I refer to a movement designed to not only register the opinions of the participants to the general public, but to further persuade that public into changing its collective mind on a vital topic (like a war) and thus the "mind" of its leaders. We're talking about marches, sit-ins, choreographed disruptions and other tools of the guerrilla theater movement, not just cocktail party banter and formal legal proceedings.

Secondly, let me state for the record that for the most part I support the politics of protesters. That's what's galling for me. I see them marching to end one travesty or another, or to support a positive path for the future, but simply cannot fathom why they've taken a path that, as far as I know, has not only never worked, ever, but has in many cases galvanized opposition against my own beloved and cherished beliefs about What Is Right.

I think it would be illustrative to think of protest in terms more of us can understand. Let's stipulate that protest is a means attempting to change a target audience's opinion on a given situation. Now, let's stipulate that this is fundamentally similar to persuasions aimed at others in far more mundane situations. Let's take the clearing of parking spaces, something to which most of us can relate. We've all been there. We're heading to our cars after shopping, eating, whatever, when in the crowded lot someone spies our impending departure. Seeing that someone else needs the space, do we help them by hurrying?

No. No we don't.

According to the author of a Penn State paper on the topic, "Most people think they leave faster, but in reality, they take more time to leave when another car waits near their space." And when the waiting car exhibits impatience, say, by honking? The departing driver actually slows.

"Even though people were leaving the parking space, departing drivers took longer when someone else wanted the space than when no one else wanted the space," the sociologist said. "This reaction is counterproductive because it takes more time and the driver's entire goal was to leave the space anyway.

"But our research shows that people do become territorial in the face of another driver and become even more territorial when the driver acts very intrusively, such as honking the car," Ruback said. (Emphasis mine.)

To relate this to protest, we have stipulated that protest's goal is to change minds. People tend, though, to be very territorial about their opinions. A madding crowd marching through the streets—and, importantly, impeding the progress of folks just trying to use those streets to go about business they feel is more important—causes the bystanders not to change their minds about the issue at issue in the protest, but to harden their stance against the protester like someone would at a honking hothead in a parking lot.

I always wondered as a kid why the US military allowed Saigon to fall. Looking back on the situation, it's fairly easy for me to see the military leaders may have continued the impossible struggle just to spite the protests and derision leveled against them. "Fuck 'em," they seemed to say, "fuck 'em all. March all you want. We're staying the course, bitches."

That doesn't sound like the outcome suggested in the comic, does it? Yet it seems to have happened that very un-comic way. Of course, don't try to tell that to anyone who embraces the simplifications, the Idealizations, expressed in that darned comic.

---

I may have found some answers to why I feel the way I do and, perhaps more importantly, why others just a few years older than me feel the way they do. Ah, but that will have to wait for another rambling of mine at a later date.

Comments

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I think you're on to something...

http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/605004.html

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, yep.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

don't try to tell that to anyone who embraces the simplifications, the Idealizations, expressed in that darned comic.

Or else what? I mean, isn't this type of judgement just another example binary approach you're trying to shun?


Consider: To relate this to protest, we have stipulated that protest's goal is to change minds. People tend, though, to be very territorial about their opinions. A madding crowd marching through the streets—and, importantly, impeding the progress of folks just trying to use those streets to go about business they feel is more important—causes the bystanders not to change their minds about the issue at issue in the protest, but to harden their stance against the protester like someone would at a honking hothead in a parking lot.

Skull and bones = "A madding crowd marching through the streets", while you propose hearts.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Skull and bones = "A madding crowd marching through the streets", while you propose hearts.

I wish that were the case. The only marches I have witnessed personally have been for left-leaning causes, usually as a reaction against right-leaning policies. They were angry and reactionary. An important point: I support many left-leaning causes.

On one occasion, I was at a park near a freeway. It got quiet. I didn't think anything amiss, but then realized there was a frickin' freeway right across a fence. I should have heard something. Instead, I heard shouting. Some protesters had marched right down the on-ramp and started a march on a freeway across the longest floating bridge in the world. The police monitoring the march closed the freeway for their safety.

People just trying to go about their business were stuck for hours waiting for them to march themselves off that freeway. Interviewed stuck people openly proclaimed that, though they had against the measure that sparked the protest, they were reconsidering. They didn't want to be associated with dicks like those that held up traffic for three frickin' hours.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

They didn't want to be associated with dicks like those that held up traffic for three frickin' hours.

Not only general traffic, but the delay to random emergency vehicles makes the tactic pretty indefensible.

When shock and awe hit, March 19, 2003 we wanted to "shut down SF". No business as usual while iraqis die under our bombs, was the slogan/idea. We shut down Bush & Powell intersections (ironic, I know) and we were driven back trying to shut down bay bridge.

There are local immediate consequences to that protesting, like pissing people off. The "go all to get along" crowd incurred zero consequences. They were not being bombed or anything, it IS a far safer path not to anger anyone and just turn a blind eye to what power does. The water is running, the game is on television, enjoy your life.

We were driven back from the bay bridge by the SFPD - who knew were were coming. It was the Quakers group who literally held their ground when the stormtroppers arrived with clubs. This atheist was quite impressed with their stick-to-it-ness, they literally prevented many unwelcome arrests.

We angered many to be sure, but there were also many who jumped out of their cars and joined in. It was more likely to join for those who lived in the city. Some cops were beating down kids on market street and these old timey SF codgers just came in and shame stopped the police. Another amazing sight.

Anyway, we failed, iraqis died, and we got to make a movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZjtUfTl_x4).

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

We shut down Bush & Powell intersections (ironic, I know). . . .

No, not ironic. You correctly identified how that tactic should be regarded in your first sentence, and I agree.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Here's a question: How did all those protests and sit-ins and love-ins and other-ins work out against Vietnam? Also from years ago, not so much. They may have perpetuated our conflict in Vietnam, not hastened its end.

It wasn't the military and government perpetuating the war, rather it was those citizens protesting it? If we had nuked the place on day one, the war wouldn't have lasted so long.

There was an official desire to put 1,000,000 ground forces in Vietnam and the idea was rejected as it would have created a domestic uproar. The protesters deserve credit for making the government feel the heat for sending so many of us to kill and die. Silence would have been consent.

Its tricky to to avoid binary thinking, good versus evil, and I'm not sure I always want to do so.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

And what are you suggesting as an alternative to what you assert are counter productive protests?

Better everyone fall into line, rally around the flag, support our country right or wrong, and just pray for a speedy end to the war once its started? Feel bad, but just silently follow the leader?

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

And what are you suggesting as an alternative to what you assert are counter productive protests?

Do what the right has done. Instead of protest the status quo, they became the leaders that dictated the new standards. They funded Faux News. They funded Republican candidates. They funded noise machine commercial buys that tipped close elections. And before that, they ran for dog catcher and school board members, and eventually dictated policy that stands today. They got involved in ways that mattered.

Don't "silently follow the leader." Become the leader, no matter what it takes.

[vehemencet-t.livejournal.com]

I hope you realize that strategy can only ever apply to reformists who wish to *equally* enjoy the benefits of the status quo as much as those who already do, not those of us who wish to change the status quo for ourselves entirely from the bottom up.

No matter who is in office, what laws are on the books, what "ism"s the intellectuals march under, the status quo remains. As long as the state and capital have ultimate control over our individual and collective lives, it always will.

In my view, a better suggestion for those who actually wish to experience fundamental changes in society that avoid the mistakes, hypocrisy and unwanted allegiances of all that is direct action itself.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

This is very good point.

Don't "silently follow the leader." Become the leader, no matter what it takes.

"My hat is off to anyone with the will to play that game."

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Sharing superior ideas and consensus building is more attractive than violence anger, and force. This is how I read the cartoon.

I agree, the stick figure cartoon which uses no words is oversimplified, despite it having 12 panels. I also agree its idealistic. Not sure what you were expecting.

Perhaps this cartoon should be critiqued within its own medium, ya know, like with a better cartoon?

(frozen) (no subject)

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

"Good" and "bad" designations lead to tortured logic and train-wreck conclusions such as those noted in the article.

So if someone were to go through a local mall with a woodchipper randomly grabbing toddlers from their strollers and tossing them into said woodchipper, you would find it problematic to make a moral assessment of their actions?

(frozen) (no subject)

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Chipping kiddies? Damn, that would almost be as bad as accusing atheists of inherent antisemitism.

Almost.

(frozen) (no subject)

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Does that happen? I know many semitic atheists.

(frozen) (no subject)

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Semitic atheism is quite strong in reality. Ask The Wife™, born a Jew (but now kinda Jew-ish). My point is that there are (why not, I'll say it) evil and unrepentant people who accuse atheists of being antisemitic simply based on their religious beliefs that insist on defying the reality around them.

These people, these accusers without spine or thought, are a plague on the planet that should be shunned, if not routed.

(frozen) (no subject)

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

So...no answer?

(frozen) (no subject)

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

You had my answer. You are as evil as they who chip, if not moreso.

You seem okay with that, so whatever.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Vietnam protests or 1963 protests lead by MLK and other black leader at the very least provoked a discussion. I believe they work in a way but not in the way protesters expect. Results are not immediate. Yes, those opposed may hunker down deeper and more firm, in a way to say, "fuck 'em all. March all you want. We're staying the course, bitches." But that's only half the story.

The other half of the story is an awareness campaign. Issues can come to light that were previously hidden.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

I believe they work in a way but not in the way protesters expect.

I would agree, but with caveats. Gandhi showed that a MASSIVE protest works. When millions gather, the authorities take notice. But mere thousands? Nah. That'll blow over.

Furthermore, I explain in one of the linked ancient lore posts how protests reinforce the feeling that protest is effective amongst the protesters. Amongst those that witnessed the marches? Not so much. Quite often, the message received is opposite the one intended.

Awareness campaigns have hit-and-miss results. Sadly, there is on several issues a very well-funded mis-info campaign ongoing. Listen to Rush Limbaugh speak on global warming, for example. Mix some half-truths with a few out-right lies and fervent belief, and the Dittoheads swallow it whole. Dude gets paid millions, and he delivers.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

We had millions in 2003, the largest protest worldwide ever (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003_anti-war_protest). Bush called us a focus group and bombed iraq anyway.

But there's a feeling to "winning" that is really good. Seattle 1999 is etched forever into my brain.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

I always wondered as a kid why the US military allowed Saigon to fall. Looking back on the situation, it's fairly easy for me to see the military leaders may have continued the impossible struggle just to spite the protests and derision leveled against them. "Fuck 'em," they seemed to say, "fuck 'em all. March all you want. We're staying the course, bitches."

That doesn't sound like the outcome suggested in the comic, does it?

The idea that the protesters were to blame for the the actions of the US military and NVA is surely myopic.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Now you're being ironic. Allow me to state my position on this specific area.

I can't "blame" the NVA for what they did. They were repelling colonists. At first, the NVA waited in the jungles under the Japanese occupation (which temporarily scattered the French colonial forces). As the Pacific War was winding down and the Japanese were retreating, Ho Chi Minn (who had studied in France and met Lenin) sent a letter to Roosevelt asking for his support in their anti-colonial cause. Given the US's history as a power once under the colonial yoke of Britain, there was no reason to suspect he would not be sympathetic. They included a movie with this request, showing a small revolutionary contingent marching in the jungle with an American flag, the band playing the "Marching Hymn of the Republic."

Sadly, Roosevelt died before the letter and movie arrived, and Truman was quite a bit more anti-communist.

Later, the French forces were doing well against the communist forces, until it was revealed that some of the French Foreign Legion forces were former SS. Oops. The French then ask for and got US support, appealing to the US's then growing anti-communist sentiment, the one that crafted the Domino Theory. Can I "blame" the US at this point? With the Domino Theory in place, no one could argue against this assistance. Was the later escalation a good idea? Again, it would be hard to make that case at the time.

Ah, but what kept the forces in Vietnam? This is where the argument gets interesting. Remember, these same Domino Theorists regarded the protest movement as an offshoot of the communist and revolutionary forces that they were fighting overseas (because, to be fair, many of them were, quite overtly and openly). To deny these protests by escalation was, in the eyes of those fighting the war, to deny communism—to take the fight against communism to the Home Front, if you will—and therefore to uphold the then values of the US itself.

Back to the irony. A "myopic" view is one that looks too closely at a single cause, ignoring in the process other causes worthy of inspection. Given the above short history of the US's involvement in what the Vietnamese call the American War, the thought that protesters, no matter how numerous and no matter how intense their message, did anything other than prolong the US's involvement, that is nothing short of ironic.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

I can't "blame" the NVA for what they did. They were repelling colonists. At first, the NVA waited in the jungles under the Japanese occupation (which temporarily scattered the French colonial forces). As the Pacific War was winding down and the Japanese were retreating, Ho Chi Minn (who had studied in France and met Lenin) sent a letter to Roosevelt asking for his support in their anti-colonial cause. Given the US's history as a power once under the colonial yoke of Britain, there was no reason to suspect he would not be sympathetic. They included a movie with this request, showing a small revolutionary contingent marching in the jungle with an American flag, the band playing the "Marching Hymn of the Republic."

We are in 100% agreement here. In the same sense that I ascribe "blame" (responsibility for ones actions) to the US, I would also ascribe to the NVA, with more sympathy, ya know, cause they live there.

Ah, but what kept the forces in Vietnam? This is where the argument gets interesting. Remember, these same Domino Theorists regarded the protest movement as an offshoot of the communist and revolutionary forces that they were fighting overseas (because, to be fair, many of them were, quite overtly and openly)

There is nothing inherently wrong with being openly communist (just pointing it out). To complain that being such is counter productive is to blame the victim for how they dressed, so to speak. And the implication, that they should just shut up and go along and hope for a speedy end, doesn't seem so savory.


To deny these protests by escalation was, in the eyes of those fighting the war, to deny communism—to take the fight against communism to the Home Front, if you will—and therefore to uphold the then values of the US itself.

This is true. Killing innocent children with chemical weapons in Vietnam has to taint those values moreso though it wasn't viewed that way.

did anything other than prolong the US's involvement

When they wanted to put 1,000,000 ground forces in Vietnam, it was opposed since the stability stateside could not be maintained with that level of involvement. The protesters put a limit on how many children they could send into the meat grinder. (I'm looking for a reference to the memo, but also dealing with sick animal and a wife who is planning a wedding for her mom's, it will have to wait a while until I find it.)

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

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