Ignore them. They’re insane.
The possible contradiction at the heart of Stewart and Colbert’s rallies.
Jon Stewart’s upcoming “Rally to Restore Sanity” and Stephen Colbert’s mock counter-rally, “March to Keep Fear Alive”—satirical (yet deeply seriously) responses to Glen Beck’s “Restore Honor” rally—are a rare form of politics, and not because comedians are leading the way.
There are, very generally, three types of political concerns or topics of political debate: the structure of the political system, which determines the formal process of creating of a law, and possibly some rights which no law can abridge (e.g. the Constitution); the content of laws (what we normally debate about); and, very rarely, how we should argue within the first two categories.
The latter involves what sort of conceptual and ideological stuff we should bring into the town hall or Congress, and what rules or customs of deliberation and reasoning we should employ when discussing these ideas. The notion, undoubtedly true, is that some such rules and customs will lead to better laws than others.
What’s interesting about Stewart and Colbert is their tacit claim to be involved with this third category of political concern (in addition to the second category). In theory, it is not just the content of the policies that they disagree with (e.g. Tea Party tax cuts), though they do disagree, but rather the deliberative process by which, say, the Tea Partiers have formed their political beliefs, and how they approach and understand those who disagree with them (e.g. moderate Republicans and Democrats).
The idea is that Tea Partiers and their ilk bring political ideas to the table that are motivated by negative emotions (e.g. fear), as opposed to virtues or reason; that they similarly eschew reason when presented with supposedly stronger counter-arguments, not even attempting to engage in serious debate; and, more generally, that they fight dirty, appealing to people’s angry passions, as opposed to cool and calm reason. Thus, we hear the call to restore “sanity.” Their immunity to reason and evidence (e.g. on the question of whether Obama is a citizen and a Christian), goes the argument, makes them “insane.”
While such meta form of political argument is rare—argument pitched at the process of deliberation, rather than the specific content of what people are debating—we saw a similar version of it only a few years ago. It’s easy to forget that one of Pres. Obama’s central campaign platforms was to restore reason and respect to the caucusing mobs on Capitol Hill.
Stewart and Colbert are picking up the mantle from Obama, who has stopped pressing the point for a number of reasons (see “healthcare debate, 2009-10″). I discussed some of these issues here.
Stewart and Colbert’s project is surely commendable in the abstract. More reason and calmer deliberation will lead to better policies. But they need to be careful, because it can be flipped on its head.
The response to a genuinely insane person is to ignore them and not allow them to join a conversation amongst sane people. To have this response to Tea Partiers and Co.—to respond by being shocked, shocked at their views, and laughing at them—will not lead to productive deliberation. The reply is that we don’t compromise with irrationality, and it might stem the tide of insane political arguments, both style and content-wise, by showing that people who use them are considered beyond the pale.
More importantly, however, the Tea Party and Co. have many concerns and perspectives (e.g. libertarianism and worries about budget balancing) that, right or wrong, are not insane. Stewart, Colbert, and their supporters shouldn’t limit serious responses to these issues when they make their independent point about what’s a good methodology for forming a political belief and for political debate. This would be a straight contradiction, one to which many of their supporters I fear will fall prey.
-Jake
Related posts:
- Polls: they told me to do it
- Primitivism is insane
- Being an ass for the republic
- A laughing matter?
- Ideological branding: Is Obama a centrist pragmatist or a communist?
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