Dean Esmay IMs Politics With A Buddy
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Smart Things Said By Smart PeopleNeedless to say, if I’m blogging an IM conversation, I think it’s very good stuff.
This passage in particular speaks to my thoughts on the Crescent of Embrace debate and beyond:
[20:34] INDCBill: let me give you an example I thought of, a bit less grandiose, yet practical
[20:34] INDCBill: that “crescent of embrace” brouhaha
[20:34] INDCBill: while I thought it was a nice design, and found the right wing reaction overblown and in [a few] cases, racist
[20:35] INDCBill: i also thought that the best course of action was for the architect to change any direct allusions to islam (”cresecent” etc)
[20:35] INDCBill: just in case the symbolism was legitimately inappropriate
[20:35] INDCBill: but this “reasonable” opinion that I had
[20:35] INDCBill: this nuance, was lost in the furor
[20:36] INDCBill: which was arguably more repellent and ridiculous to me than the original offense they were complaining about
[20:36] INDCBill: but after it was all over
[20:36] INDCBill: and it achived results (the brouhaha)
[20:37] INDCBill: which basically achieved the practical effect of changing the memorial just enough to avoid uncomfortable allusions
[20:37] INDCBill: I realized that maybe they challenged just enough to be efficacious
[20:37] INDCBill: bending the scenario without breaking
[20:37] INDCBill: (breaking meaning turning people off so much with their outsized reaction that it was politically ineffective)
[20:38] INDCBill: thus the change in the political “system” was managed successfully
[20:38] EsmayDean: Yeah. What you seem to be alluding to is the fact that hyperbolic rhetoric is often effective, even if it turns a lot of us off.
[20:38] INDCBill: yeah - the question is - to what degree?
[20:38] INDCBill: where is the cut off? and in what cases do emotionalism and rhetoric trump reason as a practical method
[20:38] INDCBill: and vice versa
[20:38] EsmayDean: It’s the “act shrill enough and you’ll get what you want.” The thing is, if you’re going to do that, you’d better realize that you do run a risk.
[20:39] INDCBill: exactly
[20:39] EsmayDean: Any time you go that route, you turn some people off.
[20:39] EsmayDean: It’s a calculation: if you turn off more people than you rally, you lose.
[20:39] INDCBill: that’s why politics is such an exquisitely difficult game
[20:39] INDCBill: and why it turns off intellectuals
[20:39] INDCBill: and f*cking sane, honest people
[20:39] EsmayDean: Yeah.
[20:39] EsmayDean: The Kosites will keep losing until they understand that.
[20:40] EsmayDean: Although we should admit to some elitism on our part. The people slugging it out WWF style, the Coulters and the Limbaughs and the Frankens and such… maybe they’re just playing the game by the rules they know will win.
[20:40] INDCBill: depressingly true
As the say, read the whole thing. It speaks to what those in the middle think day in and day out.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 19th, 2005 and is filed under Smart Things Said By Smart People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
