* RADIO RANT: Conservative Contradictions I

[Some of these early blogs are catch-ups of sorts, reactions to media trends, etc., that have been bothering me for months or years. This is a revision of an email I sent in 2003, and thus some of the anachronisms.]

[Quot. of the Day:]

America's poet once wrote, "Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself. . . ." So often epitomes of the American character, Walt Whitman's words in this instance have never rang truer than today. And never have these national contradictions been more lamentable and portentous.

I must admit to being an addict of the popular media, especially talk radio and cable news. One current refrain in said media that would seem to allow for no contradiction, a mantra of both conservative radio pundits and administration mouthpieces, is that "this is the greatest country on earth," an utterance inevitably accompanied by the assumption, spoken or not, that this greatness stems from our morality and our godliness as a "chosen" people. But then I casually channel-surf through the "reality" television shows that—as the ratings tell us—Americans now most like to watch; and I find nothing but Americans lying, cheating, and stabbing each other in the back—an environment, at last, of petty selfishness and cruelty. Then I recall the "greatest country" mantra, and realize how much of this ideology is occasioned more by a political reaction to our espoused enemies—those Shadow complexes of "evil" and "barbarism"—than by any real examination of our own national character. And on the nightly news I see mothers killing their children, friends of the family kidnapping children, and endless (however moralistic) speculation about Michael Jackson and children: these are symptoms of a society in its final decline, not of a society that should put itself forth as a model for the world.

We would benevolently impose our "democratic" way of life upon our "lessers." But what has our democracy come to? Ubiquitous Internet polls, that's what, mostly involving questions of the most inane nature, which nonetheless give us the false faith that we are making important, self-willed choices. Worse yet are the poll questions on national and foreign policy that really matter; we vote on these just as eagerly as we do on questions about our favorite "movie hunk"—not with any great thought based upon knowledge and research, but rather as knee-jerk, emotional outlets of our "free will," and our blind biases. And our insecure politicians are too often apt to devise policy based upon such public opinion. Worst of all, perhaps, such unthinking ease in exercising our "vote" in Internet polls may be having, or will have, a carry-over to actual elections, in which voting becomes another casual outlet for our now inveterate habit of clicking a box or circle in a web browser. (Or—perhaps closer to the truth—the electorate has always been, for the most part, a knee-jerk bundle of blind biases.)

The real quandary of democracy is that the opinion of the majority is often wrong, as any examination of American history makes clear—e.g., the majority attitudes towards slaves and women circa 1800. But conservative commentators still blithely and gleefully quote polls showing that, say, 70% of the U.S. public support the war, are against affirmative action, etc. However, the inanity of their logic comes to the fore when the polls are against their conservative agenda: what now? "Well," Rush Limbaugh says, "the people are in need of my enlightenment"—that is, they are ignorant, a rationale, however, that could just as well be applied to the majorities in the polls that support their agenda. This is the grand aporia, the logical contradiction, at the heart of democracy.

Another part of the conservative talk-show testament to our "greatness" is our First Amendment right to freedom of speech. But at the same time that they run this tenet up the flagpole of chauvinism, it is becoming clear that, in conservative discourse, the very right to dissent is becoming more and more limited. A too-common sentiment is that, in the wake of 9/11, those against current administration policies are unfit Americans who should leave the country, who should "go back where they came from." (As someone part Native American, this leaves me in something of a quandary.) As for our vaunted "equal rights"—admittedly, conservatives are now usually careful to avoid blatant racist statements; however, their knee-jerk negative reactions to, for example, African-Americans who continue to speak out for racial equality is actually a closet racism all the more insidious. And our vaunted open-minded embrace of all peoples and cultures—well, the current harangues against our erstwhile European allies—now they suddenly are "frogs" and "krauts" again—attests to an ongoing insulated xenophobia that put Japanese-Americans in concentration camps only fifty years ago. (Of course, the demonization of the Islamic world is the most blatant present example of all this.)

At last, the current contradictions in public discourse have coalesced into a seething, polarized virulence that is a danger to the very democracy that both sides would defend. My own attitude towards what I consider the irrational virulence of the conservative right is no doubt obvious. But at least I have listened long and hard—and with great angst—to their arguments. Many of my liberal friends and acquaintances (most in academia) have not, living more firmly in the ivory-towered realms of high culture and NPR, and thus have little first-hand experience with this frightening world of conservative talk radio and of "fair and balanced" (and utterly conservative) cable news. So I am afraid that many of their reactions are just as unthinking and virulent—gasps of disgust at the very names of Bush and Limbaugh, an elitist disdain for this whole "redneck, trailer-house" culture. It also seems to me that many of my liberal academic friends know as little about current political events and debates as their opponents, and that their pet liberal projects, such as the pro-choice and pro-environmental movements, are often championed in just as knee-jerk fashion. And there's the problem I perceive—an increasingly polarized populace yelling at each other more and more loudly, with less and less knowledge and discernment. But then, I never said that humankind was a rational animal.