Hackery and Being Right
Filed Under Big Ideas, Politics, Porchy
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There are hacks on both the political left and right…and in those not-quite-left and not-quite-right ideologies too. Humans, as we are learning (or confirming) through advances in psychological testing and assessment, are sort of inclined this way. It’s hard, if not impossible, to be critical and skeptical all the time. We have to rely, sometimes, on the expertise of others, or the supposed expertise of others in order to develop opinions on anything.
That’s the nice way of saying that sometimes we’re hacks when we don’t even know it. The test of intelligence, or at least a test of intelligence, is not whether you are always skeptical, or that you are always skeptical at the right times, but whether, when the opinion you hold has been shown to rest on unstable if not inaccurate foundations you adjust accordingly and not just double down on your own ignorance(s).
I guess what I’m curious about is why someone might consciously choose to be a hack. So as not to confuse the argument with current-current events, let’s take Rush Limbaugh. There’s no way that Limbaugh believes half of what comes out of his mouth. He couldn’t because one half refutes the other half. But he is invested in bringing down liberal and Democratic politicians. He does so through misleading his audience with half-truths, rhetorical sleights of hand, and bathetic thundering. We rightfully call these tactics “cynical” because in order to engage in them Limbaugh must believe two things (1) that the ends justify the means and (2) that there is no other way to win this argument because his audience is too stupid to listen to well-formed arguments that appeal to the intellect.
Before I go on, to the extent that Olbermann does the same thing, his tactics are also cynical and if it fits your personal ideology to replace “Olbermann” with “Limbaugh” then by all means go ahead. I won’t be speaking about particulars so you shouldn’t have any problems.
Number 2 clearly makes these tactics cynical, etymologically-speaking. Limbaugh believes … something … and he feels that he is righteous in attempting to persuade others to side with him. But he also believes they are too stupid to reach the same conclusions he did through the same machinations that he reached them, which presumably involved facts of some kind. So he must trick them into it. This notion that people are too stupid to use their intellect is cynical by definition regardless whether its true or not.
I am not trying to assert that “cynical” equals “bad.” I have several cynical notions, in part because people like Rush Limbaugh are not isolated cases. If, for example, I believe that Rush Limbaugh does what Rush Limbaugh does because it makes him money, I believe the worst of Rush Limbaugh and of his followers too, since the only way a venal person can make money through the Limbaugh method is tap into the venalism inherent in man.
But what if we believe the best of Limbaugh? What if we believed that he really believes that there is an intellectually honest conservatism that would make a better world were it enacted in policy unadulterated by Democratic politicians? And what if we also believed that (unfortunately) he is right and the hoi polloi are too stupid to choose good government on their own? In other words, what if we believed that Limbaugh is trying to create a better world and to do so he makes the most of human stupidity—using it against itself to make that better world?
Must we also believe that only Limbaugh knows the method by which this better world can be created? Must we also believe that Limbaugh developed this theory completely on his own without the aid of a single book, teacher, friend, mentor or episode of The Wire? Must we also believe that there’s not a single, solitary person in the whole nation that might be persuaded by hearing Limbaugh articulate his theory and how he arrived at it in a well-argued format free of specious or illogical reasoning?
I guess what I really want to say here is that I can offer something like forgiveness for this obstinate, hateful and ignorant hackery, this ends-justifies-the-means style of battle if I had some clear picture what those ends were supposed to be. It seems to me that people like Limbaugh refuse to offer these kinds of arguments because they just don’t exist and that’s the problem I see. Real conservative thinkers like Conor Friedersdorf and (lord help me) Ross Douthat don’t sound like Limbaugh and don’t hold his positions because they actually think through the big questions of the day.
Rush Limbaugh essentially turns himself into the straw man he is always using, right? Any liberal that stands up and says “conservative thinking is bad because I heard on the Limbaugh show last night that blah blah blah; and, that isn’t accurate because X, Y, and Z” is attacking a belief that no one really holds. His level of hackery makes him a parody of conservatism in exactly the same way that the word “Liberals,” when uttered by Limbaugh, is always followed by some parody of actual liberal thinking. “Now, this is really simple folks; the Liberals in this country would have you believe that Obama is a Christ-like figure that walks on water but…”
No big point really and I would do myself some harm if I tried to force one. Just thinking out loud.
Comments
3 Responses to “Hackery and Being Right”
Hey – I like this post.
Paradoxically all of these things can be true at once. Rush the individual may just be trying to make money, or he may be crazy. But Rush the social phenomenon is more than that.
Maybe the visible personalities of the left and right are really just avatars for the collective, unspoken hangups and fears of our times. We all harbor irrational feelings about people that we perceive as our ideological rivals.
Rush says things that are often only spoken by a voice in the back of otherwise rational, friendly, polite people’s minds. When we cheer these people, maybe it’s the cheer of an id that is happy that it isn’t the only person to have thought these things.
For more temperate conservatives and liberals alike, having these personalities around can be useful. People often open real conversations by distancing themselves from radicals in their own camp.
“I don’t agree with everything he says, but…” is another way of saying “Here is an out-of-the-way place where we can hang all the baggage that you assume comes with my point of view.”
I too liked this post..nice to see you on the Porch.
I could not help but to think of religion as I was reading this post rather than politics. Specifically thinking about a minister I grew up with. I have no doubt that at one point he truly believed in what he was saying and truly wanted to help people, however, after he rose to a level of power (had his own church), it become more of keeping it going than actually helping people. So how do you keep butts in the pews? By playing on their basic human fears. Just as we can not see what lies beyond the veil of life, we can not know the future impact of a policy shift in politics. Will Health Care reform bring down the American society or will it improve the life of everyone here? Will immigration reform stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the country or will it attract more? There is no way of knowing.
So just like the minister must keep seats in the pews, the “hacks” must keep ears to the speaker or else they are done so what are they to do? Simple, appeal to the fanatics in the audience because they are the ones most likely to propagate the message. Just as most religions are geared to the “true believers” rather than the “true thinkers”, so are the hacks on both sides geared to those who will accept whatever they say as gospel.
Someone capable of “thinking” does not need a hack or a fundamentalist minister to lead them; they can navigate pretty well on their own and then can seek out help to fill in the gaps.
I guess what really disturbs me is not so much that Olbermann, Limbaugh, or Beck are help up by what is generally accepted as “the media” as a source. Next thing we know the media will report the end of the world as predicted by the drunk on the corner.
(yeah, this is rambling…sorry).
I think that’s a fair point, one I have minor quibbles with, but nothing ultimately very damaging to your comparison.