Oh, Women and Their Emotionality!

"Look at Rachel Maddow. She comes at me on the basis of emotion. She demonizes me. I don't want conservatives to win on the basis of emotion. If we lower ourselves to the level they operate on, we hurt ourselves and our arguments."

-Tom Coburn.

I happen to think Rachel Maddow's initial response to this is top notch, that being:

I was trying to do my work. But then that pops up in my Google Alert, then I read it and I become alternately so blindingly enraged and then hysterically upset and then inconsolably morose and then hyperactively giddy and then happy and then sad and then mad and then happy again that I couldn't make sense of any of the facts that I was gathering. All of which I was trying to read through the tears of joy and anger and anxiety that I just can't control! Can't you tell I'm falling apart right now? So I promise - hold on, I'm getting emotional about this promise. I promise that tomorrow, I will gather myself and offer a full analysis of today's Tom Coburn news.

But, probably given that Rachel Maddow runs a newsish show where she discusses things that are actually happening out there in the world and then giving her opinion about that stuff, she didn't really delve into what the fuck just happened there. So, being that I don't have a newsish show and just this little blog, I'll do that.

First things first: there is the belief out there that women are emotional. I know, shocker. There is the belief out there that being emotional makes women less capable. Double shocker! There is this belief that by being emotional, women are therefore also irrational. Crazy, right? Who'd ever think that?!

Truth is, I think most people believe that. Maybe not consciously. Maybe not full on, full frontal "woman=emotional=irrational=unreliable=bad! men=logical=rational=reliable=good! men≠women!"

But it is there. And it is there because it is all around us. It is there when we talk about hiring a good worker, or hiring a woman. It was there during the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings, when someone made the comparison between having a heart surgeon who'd had to struggle to get where he is, or the best surgeon one could find, even if that surgeon had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. The idea that the first (the guy (or girl) who had to work really hard) could beget the second (that guy could be the best because he had to work so hard) is missing.

There's this thing with prejudice - all kinds - that make it hard for those of us who consider ourselves to be good people to recognize it within ourselves. It isn't just that we cognitively know that prejudice is bad and we are good, and thus we can't be prejudiced, though that's definitely a part of it. It is that in order for us to recognize our own prejudices, we have to be able to recognize when our most reflexive thoughts contain prejudice. That's extraordinarily difficult to do. It is incredibly difficult to puzzle out if you find some woman emotional because she is, in fact, being overly emotional - or if it is because we are conditioned to see women as emotional, as attacking on the basis of emotion alone. And when we're confronted about our underlying assumptions, whether by friends or by articles or by blog posts, it is essentially difficult to accept that what this other person is saying may be correct. Because what we thought felt so natural and so right, and what that other person is saying - that calling women you don't know emotional and attacking on the basis of emotion - is both historically and inherently sexist - is so foreign and so obviously wrong. Plus, it probably feels like a personal attack, because you, good person that you are, would never say something prejudiced. Because doesn't that other person know this is just how the world is?

Because of that, I don't think Tom Coburn is consciously eliciting the dog whistle of "women, crazy, huh?" But that doesn't mean his remarks aren't fused with the premise that a woman's actions are borne out of emotionality, and that emotionality is bad. It doesn't mean that he is playing a really old hand of sexism, and it doesn't mean that because he's ignorant of that (because to him it is just true), his remark isn't sexist. It doesn't mean it doesn't play into the grander metanarrative about women, and their intellectual oomph.

The Coolest Thing

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I wish my high school had been, or in this moment was, that cool. Alas, no.

Defining An Action of Evil

Four days ago, my friend linked an article, with the comment, "David Brooks at his best". It was David Brooks' column The Rush to Therapy, part of which said,

A shroud of political correctness settled over the conversation. Hasan was portrayed as a victim of society, a poor soul who was pushed over the edge by prejudice and unhappiness.

There was a national rush to therapy. Hasan was a loner who had trouble finding a wife and socializing with his neighbors.

This response was understandable. It’s important to tamp down vengeful hatreds in moments of passion. But it was also patronizing. Public commentators assumed the air of kindergarten teachers who had to protect their children from thinking certain impermissible and intolerant thoughts. If public commentary wasn’t carefully policed, the assumption seemed to be, then the great mass of unwashed yahoos in Middle America would go off on a racist rampage.

Worse, it absolved Hasan — before the real evidence was in — of his responsibility. He didn’t have the choice to be lonely or unhappy. But he did have a choice over what story to build out of those circumstances. And evidence is now mounting to suggest he chose the extremist War on Islam narrative that so often leads to murderous results.

The conversation in the first few days after the massacre was well intentioned, but it suggested a willful flight from reality. It ignored the fact that the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy. It ignored the fact that this narrative can be embraced by a self-radicalizing individual in the U.S. as much as by groups in Tehran, Gaza or Kandahar.

It denied, before the evidence was in, the possibility of evil. It sought to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment. It wasn’t the reaction of a morally or politically serious nation.

And I was unsettled and mulling over the specific, but unarticulated, contrary notion that David Brooks was, actually, very wrong. Luckily for me, I've got Jonathan Turley on the same page. While on The Rachel Maddow Show on November 12, Turley said this:

There are plenty of people who act out of rage. If you take away a few of the aspects of this case, you would have a typical disgruntled worker shooting. We have, with these shootings all over the country, where people are disturbed, disgruntled, and isolated, and they come in and they shoot people in their work place. Now, some of them are perfectly unhinged and they will latch onto religious views or political views, but what they're really acting out of is mental illness.

That doesn't deny any action of evil. What it does do is say, "Your war narrative may not be the most salient point. It is just the most convenient one, and the one that will let you sleep most soundly tonight." What it does say is, "Evil does not lurk only in the hearts of men we see as not like ourselves. It can be in any one of us, and so none of us are truly safe." What it does say is, "Religious convictions may not be the ignition of this deadly passion. It may just be the vehicle this particular person chose to take".

What bothers me about David Brooks' article is that assertion the politically and morally immature nation is the nation that stops before stomping in like gangbusters and making assertions and assumptions without gathering all of the facts. For my money, it is the nation that has matured in both its political and moral arenas that disallows the presumption of one metanarrative over the perhaps more on point micronarratives.

What also bothers me about Brooks' piece is how these discussions of how the metanarratives impact how violence is dispersed are only prevalent when the provocateur is someone other than a white, Christian man. When the perpetrator is a white, Christian man, the assumption is that this case is an isolated incident that has no greater baring on society. That this person is a sport, that his actions have nothing to do with our own metanarratives. We can still see those acts of violence as actions of evil just fine. And by seeing them as actions of evil, we manage to separate them from our person.

As the Historiann notes,

it’s only the occasional story in the print media or on the radio that will note how very much like other American mass-murderers Hasan truly is: a native-born American man, aged 13-60, who has difficult relationships with peers and co-workers, and especially with women. (Not coincidentally, a lot of these killers are strongly invested in traditional gender hierarchies and see themselves as at odds with modern American women, who think they can make their own decisions about whom they’ll date or spend time with.)

I'm all for examining how systemic beliefs parlay into actions, violent or otherwise. I'm all for examining how those systemic beliefs and images and messages influence how we as a people react to actions, violent or otherwise. I'm a big believer in systemic influences, both positive and negative. And yet, we can't lose sight of the individual either, and how the individual's own maladies (or lack thereof) influence how much that message takes hold, and how it is expelled upon the world.

The thing David Brooks seems to be missing is that the idea we should hold off on saying, "Islamic extremist!" in this case isn't simply (or even) to stop the swells of people in Middle America from going on murderous rampages of their own. It is an effort to better ourselves, to look beyond our minute fairy tale beliefs in good and evil and how that good and evil is displayed, and search for deeper and more concrete answers. It is an effort to elevate ourselves, both as individuals and as a society, beyond the prejudices that say "if someone has a funny name and dark skin and reads out of a different book than mine, that book must be the source of the problem". It is in an effort to become a more politically and morally mature nation, a nation that does not see every act of violence perpetrated by someone in the category of Other as stemming from reasons wholly separate from acts of violence perpetrated by someone not in that category. That we can work to reasonably suss out where the act of violence stems from, understand what could have been possible catalysts, recognize those catalysts, and still understand the actions as being evil and the actor of creating evil. Because an action borne out of social maladjustment can exist within the possibility of evil just as much as an action borne out of religious extremism can. To deny that, to deny the want to assess alternate possibilities under the cry of it being a denial of evil is, I think, in itself an act of an immature nation.

"Sick Puppies"

This is actually why I like Keith Olbermann:

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When not on his own show, he's actually not bombastic and hard-liney. He's rather reasoned and calm(ish) and intelligent-sounding. That kind of sounds like I don't like his show, and I do. But I'm sure that if Olbermann covered this on his own show, he wouldn't be offering up the paternal defense and going straight for the "Are you calling me a sick puppy, you sick puppy?" And I like that defense, because it is actually understanding of the different impulses human beings actually have - even Republican ones.

Why I Love Rachel Maddow:

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My favorite part, aside from how genuinely (and yet demurely, by comparison to certain other pundits who shall go unnamed, except to say one of their names begins with 'K' and ends with 'eith', and another who's name begins with 'B' and who is on another network) upset she is by the double standards, are the graphs that come up during her assessment.

Contractor: Lockheed Martin
Fraud Cases: 11
Amount: $68.500,000

Contractor: Northrop Grunman
Fraud Cases: 9
Amount: $501,400,000

Nice, clear, straight to the point.

Quote of the Day

If Cirque de Soleil has always lacked that certain, creepy Stalinist
nationalism you crave, this might be for you.

Rachel Maddow, on North Korea's Rythmic Flip Card Uber Circus.

Why I Should Take The Time To Watch Television:

Exhibit A:

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I discovered this awesome song featured on the Rachel Maddow Show while I listened to both last thursday's and friday's shows at work in an attempt to maintain my sanity, and because I had a meeting that ran long on friday preventing me from listening to thursday's show then. What this means is that I missed out on this greatness, and was unable to respond to it in a timely fashion. However, I do think the song is terrific.

"We are not Guantanamo"

I've been busy watching my men's team getting their asses handed to them, my women's team making it to the National Championship game undefeated (We're #1!), and the team that took down my men's team being decimated. Though to be fair, that last one hasn't really concluded yet. Let's just say that it isn't looking good for Michigan. In the course of all that, though, is this incredible take down by Rachel Maddow from friday:

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This is righteous anger at its finest. Maddow manages to come off as both hopping mad and coolly analytical. Emotional, yet logical. And the points she makes are the points that should be drilled home in regard to national security and international policy for years to come. The Dick Cheneys of the world only make it harder for the United States to not only be the great nation we can be - one that actually abides by its own rule of law - but they also make it harder for us as a nation to protect our own citizens. They make it harder for us to truly make a difference in the world.

Chris Hayes Is A Dork

I love the guy, and look forward to his editorials in The Nation with glee, but he is also totally a dork:

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I actually think his dorkatude works to his advantage. It may just be that he fails to use contractions when he says, "I am obviously being sarcastic". It may have been more annoying had he'd said "I'm obviously being sarcastic", but the combination of that statement when it was indeed obvious and the lack of contraction really makes it.

Now, onto more important things; I'm starting to believe that what Chris Hayes says is correct, that many of the Republicans who have reached the upper echelons of their party's leadership have decided that the best way to win back some power in America would be to stymie Democratic attempts to fix America. If they obstruct many pieces of legislation, or, you know, the sitting of a senator, then they are playing on the hopes that it fails and that they can point out its failure in 2010 or 2012 without mentioning the part their obstruction could have potentially played in that failure. I have no doubt that Norm Coleman really wants to be Minnesota's senator. But really, at a certain point in time it is more than appropriate to throw in the old towel; and this, along with Republicans voting against the stimulus bill and then bragging about all the goodies they got in it, along with continued Republican lies about organizations like ACORN and what was actually in that stimulus bill, makes me a might bit suspicious.

The game many Republicans are now playing seems directly related to the game they play in regard to national security. I live in a blue state - not a blue dog state, just a true blue one. Our Republicans are for things like gun control laws and abortion rights (not that we have any more on the national scene), that's how blue we are. And even I have heard and seen plenty of talk about how Bush kept us safe for 8 years, because after 9/11 there hadn't been another terrorist attack. The problem with that is two-fold; it is trying to prove a negative in that it is trying to create a correlation between the policies that have ostensibly proven to create more terrorists with the fact that we have not had a terrorist attack, and it is playing the numbers game. There is no way to keep America perfectly safe, especially now that we've (we've) destabilized a nation in an already tumultuous region and tortured people; we can keep America fairly safe, even very safe. But what the Bush administration and those who have fixed upon their talking points have done is to ensure a climate where any hint of terrorism under Obama equals a fail for him, even if those engaged in terrorism had turned to terrorism because of Bush era policies. And that is as intellectually disingenuous as it is politically savvy. 

A less politically savvy aspect of this "My country when it thinks I'm right, but I hope it fails when it thinks I'm wrong" are things like Sean Hannity's poll asking what kind of rebellion his followers would prefer against the country, and Rush Limbaugh hoping out loud and often that President Obama fails; but the presence of such ideas in the overall dialogue lends credence to the thought that the other obstructionist stuff may be less based on principles and more on politics. It doesn't prove anything, but it sure does leave a bad taste in my mouth.

But back to Chris Hayes. Chris makes a point that "the town remains wired for Republicans. It still listens to Republican talking points. We saw this in the stimulus and when you had all these Republicans on the cable networks talking all the time about, you know, their objection to this part of the stimulus. That still permeates the institutional structure of elite consensus opinion in Washington despite the massive change in public opinion about how people feel about conservative ideas and the Republican party. The smaller, kind of insular, beltway establishment still is far more willing to cut Republicans slack than actual voters at large are." This is an echo, though less tinfoil hat extreme, of someone I thought was just insane on Bill Moyers' The Journal on February 6th. Says Glenn Greenwald:

I think it raises an interesting dilemma. Which is, if you look at what the media were saying about Obama favorably, both around the time of his election and subsequent as well, they kept insisting that he could continue Bush's counterterrorism policies that were so controversial.

They were praising him for leaving in place all sorts of Bush officials that the media wants to see is continuity, that he's not threatening to their way of life and to their establishment, for the reason that we talked about before. That's how he wins praise from them, is by showing that he isn't going to change things fundamentally, and therefore, isn't a threat to their system.

At the same time, as Jay said, what he needs to do more than anything to fulfill the commitments that he made, is demonstrate that he's a true change agent. And I think these objectives are very much in conflict, because the more he threatens the Washington system, I think the more hostility the press will feel towards him, and therefore, project to the public about him. And that, too, can undermine his political popularity.

And while Nancy Pelosi may have schooled Rachel Maddow about how effective the Republicans dominating the talking points during the stimulus debate was, I think at some point the dominance will affect American perception of the presidency and the legitimacy of the Democratic rule and liberalism in general. Liberal is already a damned dirty word, and I would like that to change. But as long as the Republicans can play keep away without being seriously called on it, that isn't likely to.

The End of Conservative Policy (Economic Edition)

I need someone to explain to me what is good about the conservative economic plan; I've never been a fan of conservative theories in general, but their economic policies have always struck me as particularly obtuse. I could never imagine something like the trickle down theory of economics working, merely because my grasp of human nature is such that I think once we have something we covet -money, clothing, whatever- we are not, as a group, likely to willingly give it up even for the good of the populace. We will hold onto what we covet unless there are laws or regulations dictating that we do otherwise. Perhaps I am wrong about the inherent selfishness present in human nature; but I think the current economic crisis belies that idea. The money that was supposed to make it down to the middle and lower classes via tax cuts for the most wealthy and tax incentives for the corporations never did show up; at least, not in my household and probably not in many others. I'm not entirely sure how it was going to trickle down anyway; perhaps someone who knows the intricate details of Reaganomics could do more to inform me if it was supposed to influence merely the prices of items on the market or if it was supposed to be in the form of raises. I was always caught up in the fact that it didn't work in the 1980s and it did not work this time around either. My outbursts on the matter were so annoying that a teacher of mine in high school 'recommended' that I not take Econ with her, and that I should probably take Law and Society instead; I took that advice, partially for her sake and partially for my own, but that means I know less about economic matters than any self-respecting political junkie should.

What I do know is that what annoyed me about Reagonomics in high school and prior to high school continues to bother me to this day; I also profoundly agree with Rachel Maddow when she said (paraphrased from tonight's show) that those who despise government and do not believe it is the answer to a nation's woes should probably not be elected to actually run the government. I also dislike the deregulation of industries. As I see it, regulation is a must; an addendum to my previous rule of thumb regarding human behavior is this: morals generally are not voluntarily applied to corporations or those who wish to make money, and that most of those wishing to make money will do so by any means necessary, even if it means ignoring what would be common sense for long-term growth. One only needs to read The Jungle to understand why regulation is important. Barring that, one only has to look at Wall Street and our nation's financial 'strength' circa October 29, 1929 through 1939. And that only took our involvement in a world war to bounce back from. Regulatory practices seem like a good idea, mostly because the conservative idea about a free market being self-correcting is in actuality true. The problem with that self-correcting function being that much of the country cannot truly handle such fluctuations like a market correction. It is my belief, and perhaps the wrong one, that it is better to stymie potential and gratuitous windfalls if doing so also allows for a certain amount of control when the market heads in the opposite direction. It means less exhilarating growth, but it also means less abysmal lows as well. As someone who has never been much of a risk taker in any medium, that sounds like a fair balance to me.

Considering that even conservatives are working fiercely against the natural correction of the market, I am calling into question whether or not belief in the conservative philosophy -at least, the economic fork of that philosophy- is coming to an end. I can only hope that some of it does die, and with a whimper instead of a bang. But then, I'm more of a pump-primer, Keynesian economic policy girl myself. If anyone could tell me why I am wrong in aligning myself with that philosophy, I'd be much obliged.