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The Danger of Peacock Politics
Jan. 11th, 2011 02:43 pmPeacocks, as everyone knows, are a wonderful example of an unintended side-effect. To mate with a peahen, the peacock has to have an extravagantly brilliant plumage. This takes a lot of energy that could be used to make the peacock fitter in other ways. It also makes them easy pickings for predators. It is a viable survival strategy for the species, but it doesn't work out too well for individual peacocks - I imagine they have short lifespans compared to their sisters.
But what if your survival strategy is the plan of human minds, rather then the hand of the blind watchmaker? Ideas are susceptible to evolutionary pressure too, and humans minds are certainly fallible - I myself generate a few unintended consequences every day.
Conservative politicians (and here I'm mostly referring to the American right-wing, but other countries have the same problem to greater or lesser degrees) have hit upon a strategy of demonizing the other side. The left-wing isn't just different, or incorrect, they're actually evil. And the right-wing's leadership and pundits hit upon these points again and again. This strategy is also a well-known propaganda technique:
But here's the thing, it is a powerfully effective propaganda technique - we know this because it works. The right wing has managed to convince a large portion of the populous to vote against their own economic interests.
The peacock's plumage gets the peacock laid, but the downside is the peacock is a sitting duck for predators. The right-wing's rhetoric gets the right-wing elected. What's the downside?
To my mind there are two downsides, we were witness to one this last weekend: the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords. Simply put, there are some nutbars out there and they're marinating in constant descriptions in the media of metaphorical violence and revolution. Is it any wonder that some of them slip over the edge into actual violence?
At this point, Loughner (the shooter) is shaping up to be more of a Hinckley and less of a Kopp - which is to say there may have been a political motive, but this was not primarily politically motivated. I do believe that the target and the venue were chosen the way they were because of the surrounding rhetoric. Without it, Loughner might have shot someone else, or fewer people, or no one at all.
Unless he comes out with a statement along the lines of "Yes I wanted to kill Gabrielle Giffords, and Sarah Palin's graphic was my last straw" I doubt we'll know definitively.
Here's the thing though - no one was surprised and the immediate first thought of both sides was that this was a political assassination - an assassination triggered by the violently themed rhetoric. The left-wing have been nervous about it for years (many people thought there was a very good chance Obama would be shot at during his inauguration). I heard a lot of speculation that this was America's Kristallnacht (though that turns out to have been premature, thank god). So everyone's been expecting the inflammatory rhetoric to actually trigger some wacko for months (if not years) now. I even commented on the right building the foundations for their excuses months ago. Would Sarah Palin's keepers have removed the infamous graphic if they didn't know a comparison was inevitable.
They're not going to stop the rhetoric, they have to keep it because it's what gets them elected. Just like a less-ornate peacock might be a better individual, but won't get to mate. For the foreseeable future this is the bed that America has made for itself.
I mentioned a second unintended consequence. The right-wing has been flirting with it for years: Fascism. Certainly, the ruling business elite would like to get all of the (to them) desirable aspects of fascism, they just haven't figured out how to get that without all of the bad. Unfortunately, they've now created a political movement - the Tea Party - that could slide into fascism very easily. If the economy was better, the Tea Party would be like a new incarnation of the hornet-like John Birch society: dangerous to hit a hive with a stick, but something you could largely ignore otherwise.
Instead, the economy is in the shitter, and when that happens, people start looking for people to blame and ways to control their own destiny. When the unemployment rate inches towards 20%, the risk is not that lone nutters will take the violent rhetoric to heart - it's that large organized movements will.
But what if your survival strategy is the plan of human minds, rather then the hand of the blind watchmaker? Ideas are susceptible to evolutionary pressure too, and humans minds are certainly fallible - I myself generate a few unintended consequences every day.
Conservative politicians (and here I'm mostly referring to the American right-wing, but other countries have the same problem to greater or lesser degrees) have hit upon a strategy of demonizing the other side. The left-wing isn't just different, or incorrect, they're actually evil. And the right-wing's leadership and pundits hit upon these points again and again. This strategy is also a well-known propaganda technique:
His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.From an OSS psychological profile of Adolph Hitler. I hesitated to include this quote for two reasons: 1) Godwin's law, and 2) To do so I could be accused of demonizing the other side, which I'm arguing is a bad thing.
But here's the thing, it is a powerfully effective propaganda technique - we know this because it works. The right wing has managed to convince a large portion of the populous to vote against their own economic interests.
The peacock's plumage gets the peacock laid, but the downside is the peacock is a sitting duck for predators. The right-wing's rhetoric gets the right-wing elected. What's the downside?
To my mind there are two downsides, we were witness to one this last weekend: the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords. Simply put, there are some nutbars out there and they're marinating in constant descriptions in the media of metaphorical violence and revolution. Is it any wonder that some of them slip over the edge into actual violence?
At this point, Loughner (the shooter) is shaping up to be more of a Hinckley and less of a Kopp - which is to say there may have been a political motive, but this was not primarily politically motivated. I do believe that the target and the venue were chosen the way they were because of the surrounding rhetoric. Without it, Loughner might have shot someone else, or fewer people, or no one at all.
Unless he comes out with a statement along the lines of "Yes I wanted to kill Gabrielle Giffords, and Sarah Palin's graphic was my last straw" I doubt we'll know definitively.
Here's the thing though - no one was surprised and the immediate first thought of both sides was that this was a political assassination - an assassination triggered by the violently themed rhetoric. The left-wing have been nervous about it for years (many people thought there was a very good chance Obama would be shot at during his inauguration). I heard a lot of speculation that this was America's Kristallnacht (though that turns out to have been premature, thank god). So everyone's been expecting the inflammatory rhetoric to actually trigger some wacko for months (if not years) now. I even commented on the right building the foundations for their excuses months ago. Would Sarah Palin's keepers have removed the infamous graphic if they didn't know a comparison was inevitable.
They're not going to stop the rhetoric, they have to keep it because it's what gets them elected. Just like a less-ornate peacock might be a better individual, but won't get to mate. For the foreseeable future this is the bed that America has made for itself.
I mentioned a second unintended consequence. The right-wing has been flirting with it for years: Fascism. Certainly, the ruling business elite would like to get all of the (to them) desirable aspects of fascism, they just haven't figured out how to get that without all of the bad. Unfortunately, they've now created a political movement - the Tea Party - that could slide into fascism very easily. If the economy was better, the Tea Party would be like a new incarnation of the hornet-like John Birch society: dangerous to hit a hive with a stick, but something you could largely ignore otherwise.
Instead, the economy is in the shitter, and when that happens, people start looking for people to blame and ways to control their own destiny. When the unemployment rate inches towards 20%, the risk is not that lone nutters will take the violent rhetoric to heart - it's that large organized movements will.
