Listen to Them, They're Dying

I haven't posted here in forever, but I just saw (on Facebook) my stepmom's running commentary on tonight's Presidential Press conference, and I just had to write something about it somewhere.

Oh, these poor, pathetic people.

It actually made my stomach twist, reading her labored disdain and vitriol. After seven years of waving the flag to press conferences full of, "Y'see, they hate our freedoms," she actually had the gall to criticize President Obama over his "ums" and "ahs."

Clue to all Republicans who have suddenly discovered the merits of pristine diction: when someone who constructs elaborate, on-the-fly, grammatically correct sentences while addressing complicated issues inserts "um" or "ah" into those sentences, it means he is actually thinking about his answers. 

I know that's not something we're used to, and not necessarily something that you folks believe is desirable in a leader, but there it is. 

I've Never Seen Anything To Make Me Believe There's One All-Powerful Force Controlling Everything

Michael Gerson (ghastly former speechwriter for George W. Bush) published a column in the Washington Post recently that made me write him an email.

Here's what I said:


There are a couple of problems with your contention that , "Atheists can be good people; they just have no objective way to judge the conduct of those who are not."

First, of course, is the fact that human experience is wholly subjective, and so it doesn't especially matter whether I as an agnostic have an objective means of judgment. Yes, you can attack this as moral relativism, but moral relativism is an inescapable fact of the world, not just a bogeyman label meant to imply that everyone can do as he pleases. The institution of slavery is repugnant to us as modern individuals, but was considered perfectly moral only two centuries ago, and is actively condoned in the Bible by God Himself. Morality is an evolutionary process, and you can't get away from that. (I would in fact contend that it's a good thing.)

Second, for the largest part of your audience the lack of an objective means of judgment should be irrelevant. Christians have been commanded, Biblically, not to judge others. Now, you can get semantic about the distinction between judging "others" and judging "the conduct" of others, but I think those are just intellectual acrobatics. Your column is essentially promoting in believers the sense that their approach is superior to that of atheists, and by extension that they are better people than atheists, which is exactly the kind of judgment they've been ordered divinely not to make.

Finally, and most importantly, the opening clause of your statement provides an empirical starting point for disproving the followup. If atheists "can" be good people, what is it that results in the majority of them actually being good people? What thought process do they go through that leads them, by and large, to moral positions? You are clearly intelligent enough to reason out the answer to that question, if you would only put yourself in the shoes of an atheist and do so.

Believers do not want to accept the notion that reason alone can support a constructive, moral society. They want to be superior to nonbelievers not only in their attainment of salvation, but also in their approach to earthly governance of their baser instincts. But I would contend that this focus on worldy morality is anathema to spiritual success, if there is such a thing. Inevitably, the religionist who focuses on a material struggle between belief and nonbelief (or belief and alternative belief) becomes drawn toward a position in which immoral actions toward nonbelievers are considered acceptable.

As an example of this, I will point out that you, a believer, did not care that I, a nonbeliever, would be emotionally hurt by a column claiming that my worldview is incapable of real goodness.

Thanks for your time,

Herb Mallette

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Most likely, he was too deluged with emails to respond to mine, if he even read it. But even as I'm pretty sure that's the case, I'd sure like to think he was just too smacked down to come up with a reply.

Twisted and Evil.

I hope everybody saw the great Daily Show segment on the immigration bill earlier this week. (Thursday, maybe?) Jon Stewart turned to one of his senior correspondents (the guy who plays the PC in those Mac commercials), and spent about 5 minutes destroying Pat Buchanan and various other inane pundits who've been out pimping the "illegal aliens have tuberculosis and leprosy" line.

They used a terrific device for this: PC-guy would say something outrageous to Stewart -- something so off-the-wall it could only be over-the-top Daily Show satire -- and then when Stewart objected that anyone could possibly say such a thing, they would roll a clip of Buchanan or one of his ilk saying, verbatim, what the PC-guy had just said.

It's Over.

Or most likely so. Here is what I expect to be the finale of my correspondence with Jonathan Gurwitz.

His response to the last email I posted here went as follows:

Mr. Mallette:

We disagree about the meaning - or perhaps the context - of Sen. Reid's statement. That's a reasonable disagreement and one that makes an opinion page interesting. I would encourage you to make the same points in a letter to the editor.

But your discussion of this subject is far different from ones in which you have accused me of writing inflammatory lies and suggested that the Express-News fire me. You'll understand, therefore, if your sarcasm doesn't necessarily register with your editorial nemesis.

The most important feedback I can receive from readers is solid, meaningful criticism. It forces me to reevaluate my positions and challenges my preconceptions. Taunts, name-calling and overwrought sarcasm reveal a narrow-mindedness that offers nothing constructive.

I am always glad to receive and truly welcome the former.

Regards,

Jonathan Gurwitz

_____________________________

My Response:

It has been a long time since my letter to the editor suggesting that your work did not meet the necessary level of journalistic integrity that I would expect of a major publication. As I recall, it was in response to a column that, like this most recent one, accused Democrats of not caring about the security of the United States of America. I see this as a gravely false charge -- indeed, a scurrilous one, and the worst kind of name-calling. It provoked me to outrage because I care so deeply about this nation and the philosophy of freedom that it represents.

I see now that you may not recognize what I see as the utter falseness of that charge. Your issuance of it actually does appear to be sincere. But at the time I wrote that letter, I simply could not credit that a person of such apparent intelligence could actually believe something I found so heinous. So I was wrong to call for your ouster -- because you would have been ousted for an opinion, not for deliberate falsehood. (I hope you will agree that the latter should in fact be grounds for dismissal from any journalistic enterprise.)

Still -- if your hostility toward my views has all this time been driven by that letter, which of us is being narrow-minded? More to the point, is it not "name-calling" for you to refer to me as "narrow-minded?" Can you agree that both of us have been guilty of overreaction to one another's writing?

Jonathan Swift would beg to differ that sarcasm (in the form of satire) offers nothing constructive. I wrote my satirical self-abasement because my attempts to maintain a straightforward, reasoned discussion with you had been so thoroughly rebuffed, culminating in an email in which you accused me of lying simply because I said that you had compared Chris Rock and Leni Riefenstahl. The fact of the matter is that you did explicitly compare them. (Note that that is completely different from saying you "equated" or even that you "likened" them.) You did so in a column that was highly critical of Hollywood and artists, two categories that include Chris Rock. So forgive me if I missed the fact that your intent was to decry the censors, not those whom they would censor. What came across to me was not, "Chris Rock is harmlessly funny though profane, whereas Leni Riefenstahl was a monster." What came across to me was, "Chris Rock is an example of the degraded morals of Hollywood, which cannot even recognize what a monster Leni Riefenstahl was." But instead of giving me the benefit of the doubt or asking for a clarification of my opinion, you called me a liar -- despite the fact that a literal reading of my statement reveals it to be clearly and empirically true.

In closing, I notice that you have ignored my retraction of your status as my editorial nemesis. Please recall that I admitted the wrong in that phrase, and apologized.

Are we to remain enemies, then, because your work angered me, and I expressed that anger openly? If you have no room in your heart to forgive words written in the grip of dark emotion, simply tell me so, and I will cease to waste our mutual time.

Sincerely,

Herb Mallette
---------------------------------

His reply to that:

Mr. Mallette:

I don't consider you to be my enemy, I hold no anger toward you and nothing in any of my correspondence to you could reasonably be construed as being hostile. The converse, however, has not been true.

I believe you hold a sincere but different viewpoint than I do. You believe I am a propagandist who writes heinous, gravely false lies. Who is narrow minded?

As I have stated, I welcome reasoned criticism from you and other readers. I hope to receive more from you in the future.

Regards,

Jonathan

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And my response (likely the end of this):

How about if we just leave it at that, then. I'm afraid I will have to disappoint you on the criticism end of things, as I doubt I will contact you directly again. The process of corresponding with you is rather distressing to me, insofar as it has borne almost no fruit that I can see. I would prefer to concentrate on other forms of writing in which I am able to achieve a more positive effect.

Have a good life.

Sincerely,

Herb Mallette

A New Hope

Once again, I correspond with Jonathan Gurwitz!

The occasion was a column in which he referred to Harry Reid's purported boasting about killing the Patriot Act back in December. I'll try to find the link when I've more time.

I sent the following:

I could not find any full, in-context presentation of Harry Reid's supposed gloating over killing the patriot act on the web, but the WMV that's been circulated certainly does not show him looking like the statement is a boast. There's no way to tell whether he's crowing that "we" Democrats killed the Patriot Act or gravely observing that "we" the Senate killed it. But given the following statement that he issued on the subject, it is clear that the out-of-context statement cannot be taken as the end-all and be-all of Reid's opinion on the subject.

http://reid.senategov/record.cfm?id=249984
http://reid.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=249984

If you're aware of a fuller presentation of Reid's "We killed the Patriot Act" statement, I would be delighted to to see it, even if it supports your thesis.

Sincerely,

Herb Mallette

-----------------------------
To which he responded:

Mr. Mallette:

Accounts of Sen. Reid's boast can be found here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a.MKH8CaQO8M&refer=us
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/13426158.htm
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20051217-123708-4670r.htm

It's very clear from these different accounts ("defiant tone," "cheering crowd") what Sen. Reid meant. It's also very clear from the statement on his Web site and from the following entry in the Congressional Record that Sen. Reid recognized the political fallout of his comment: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2005_record&page=S13997&position=all

Good to see you communicating in a civilized way again.

Regards,

Jonathan Gurwitz

-------------------------
My reply to this was:

Hi,

I'm afraid all that's clear to me from those accounts is that the press want to convey an appearance of boastfulness in Sen. Reid. They may want to do so because that is what they actually perceived, or they may want to do so because it throws red meat to the crowds of rancorous partisans whom, apparently, the media now view as their bread and butter. But I refuse to trust the characterization of the statement as a "boast" simply because someone from the Washington Times terms it thus.

What I find myself exceedingly frustrated by is the lack of any apparent resource for seeing what Reid actually said in full context.

Consider these two contrasting hypothetical contexts:

"Today is a proud day for Democrats. Our party is resurgent. The warmonger Republicans have suffered their first defeat. Look what happened twenty minutes ago in the U.S. Senate. We killed the Patriot Act."

versus

"Today is a sad day for all of America, and for the hallowed institution of the Senate. People on both sides of the aisle should be ashamed. Look what happened twenty minutes ago in the U.S. Senate. We killed the Patriot Act."

Now, I doubt very much that either of these two extremes represents the actual context of Reid's remarks. But the look on his face as he said "We killed the Patriot Act" hardly looked like someone glorying in a mighty victory, and so I can envision the possibility that the context was closer to the second than to the first.

Note that I say "envision the possibility" rather than "feel with certainty" or even "strongly suspect."

The cheering of the crowd can hardly be blamed on Senator Reid regardless of his intent, and I am unpersuaded that the phrase "defiant tone" implies boastfulness. That same phrase has been used of President Bush on many occasions when no one would have accused him of boasting.

I concede that Reid is clearly trying to control the damage of the way in which his statement was received -- but that is no proof of the way in which he intended it. I have on a variety of occasions had to work to undo discord that my own words engendered, even though discord had been the furthest thing from my intent.

I'm unsure how to take your closing line of "Good to see you communicating in a civilized way again." If your intent was to imply that my last email in our previous exchange was somehow uncivilized, I would beg to differ. I responded with strong sarcasm to being flatly called a liar, but there was not one impolite word in that email, which you may recall affected a tone of pure (though satirical) self-abasement. I am not sure what satire is if it is not an artifact of civilization.

On the other hand, if your intent was merely to express pleasure at receiving a new email from me, then I am a bit surprised, but hopeful and also appreciative.

Sincerely,

Herb Mallette
------------------------
Let's hope this go-round doesn't turn into the massively aggravating debacle that the last one became. (If you're reading this, Jonathan, please note that I am not saying that you are solely or predominantly to blame for the debacle, though I admit to holding you culpable in some degree.)

Strong With the Dark Side, That Place Is

In trying to lay out a strategy for the GOP to regain its moral core, David Brooks unwittingly gives a hint as to why there was never such a thing in the first place. Here's the key paragraph, amid numerous very good pieces of ethical advice that would make for good policy and good government:

"Third, Republicans need to steal Democratic Reps. David Obey and Barney Frank's lobbying-reform ideas. Democrats have been slow to trumpet the ideas coming from their party. Republicans have a chance to hijack them before the country notices."

Got that?

"steal"
"hijack"
"before the country notices"

Brooks can't even use the language of honesty when trying to urge his party to do the right thing. The message couldn't be clearer: it's not doing what's right that's important, it's gaining the advantage over Democrats.

Brooks could just as easily have written the following:

"Third, Republicans need to team with Democratic Reps. David Obey and Barney Frank on lobbying reform. Democrats have been slow to trumpet Obey and Frank's ideas, and they're exactly the kind of ideas Republicans ought to be pushing."

My version even preserves the obligatory dig at the Democrats as a party, for pity's sake. It just doesn't couch the endeavor in terms of raw, naked partisanship the way Brooks' version does.

And that's why the Republicans aren't going to get out of this unscathed: they can look no further than tactics for retaining their political supremacy. Their moral reasoning is entirely based on what is good for the Republican party's hegemony.

[Sorry I couldn't link to Brooks' column -- it was on hardcopy in my morning paper.]

Things, You Will See. Other Places. The Future . . . The Past.

I went to see King Kong on Saturday and The Chronicles of Narnia yesterday. Two very odd films. [SPOILERS FOLLOW]

Roger Ebert's take on Kong hit the key point: this great achievement of this version of the film is its successful portrayal of the relationship between Kong and Ann Darrow. It's no longer a disturbing tale of interspecies lust as it was in the original, but a real emotional connection between a bright, sensitive woman and a very intelligent animal.

What Ebert misses, though is the way that portrayal turns the final third of the movie into a revolting spectacle of utter and grotesque cruelty. It's like 45 minutes of watching Old Yeller get put down. And then some jerk who didn't give a damn about Old Yeller ends the movie by saying, "Well, that's what a dog gets for tangling with a wild boar. Dumb mutt."

Ebert also seems oblivious to the fact that the film is full of the dumbest of dumb action-movie contrivances. How he could give it four stars is beyond me. But the interplay between Naomi Watts and Kong is worth the price of admission by itself, and if you like dumb action movies, the Skull Island section of the film is a great one.

Narnia is weird because it contains the four most passive protagonists I think I've ever seen in an action film, even a children's action film. I guess it makes sense, since they're just kids, that they undertake almost no actions of their own volition or imagining once they get to Narnia. But I was kind of expecting to find Aslan a richly drawn character, not just a nice CG lion with a soothing voice. Overall, a spectacle and effects worth watching, but nothing that left me especially moved (other than the opening scenes of the Blitz on London).

Each of these movies deserves 2-1/2 or 3 stars. In Narnia's case, that's a consistent rating for the whole film; in King Kong's, its a mathematical average for a film that's almost all outlier and no middle.