Self-Interest versus the Cult of Personality

[arendt]

It is possible to interpret any issue or post in a way that bears on some candidate. This style of rhetoric is almost Marxist in its use of the trope "objectively pro-X". Apparently, we are now in a situation where every OP that even vaguely mentions a candidate or group of candidates, or gets pushed by downthread responses into even a denial of discussion of candidates, is at risk for being booted out of GD.

It would seem that nothing short of sterile academic discussion of the mess that is our political SYSTEM - with absolutely no mention of any current candidate, their surrogates, or their funders - qualifies for GD. Therefore, in this dry and boringly-titled post, I offer this twenty year-old, sterile, academic quotation on the subject of the title of this post for your somnolence:

Although it may go too far to say that the politician-as-celebrity has, by itself, made political parties irrelevant, there is certainly a conspicuous correlation between the rise of the former and the decline of the latter. Some readers may remember when voters barely knew who the candidate was and, in any case, were not preoccupied with his character and personal life. As a young man, I balked one November at voting for a Democratic mayoralty candidate who, it seemed to me, was both unintelligent and corrupt. "What has that to do with it?" my father protested. "All Democratic candidates are unintelligent and corrupt. Do you want the Republicans to win?" He meant to say that intelligent voters favored the party that best represented their economic interests and sociological perspective. To vote for the "best man" seemed to him an astounding and naive irrelevance. He never doubted that there were good men among Republicans. He merely understood that they did not speak for his class...

I will not argue there the wisdom of this point of view. There may be a case for choosing the best man over party (although I know of none). The point is that television does not reveal who the best man is. In fact, television makes impossible the determination of who is better than whom, if we mean by "better" such things as more capable in negotiation, more imaginative in executive skill, more knowledgeable about international affairs...and so on. The reason has, almost entirely, to do with "image". But not because politicians are preoccupied with presenting themselves in the best possible light. After all, who isn't...But television give image a bad name. For on television the politician does not so much offer the audience an image of himself, as offer himself as an image of the audience. And therein lies one of the most powerful influences of the television commercial on political discourse...

And so, while image politics preserves the idea of self-interest voting, it alters the meaning of "self-interest"..."interests" (used to mean) something tangible - patronage (etc.). Judged by this standard, blacks may be the only sane voters left in America. Most of the rest of us vote our interests, but they are largely symbolic ones, which is to say, of a psychological nature. Like television commercials, image politics is a form of therapy.

- Neal Postman, "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business".

Wake up! Wake up! If you are still there, please discuss, in a sterile, academic manner.

Actually, FYI, Postman studied under Marshall McCluhan. This book is great, and I highly recommend it.

Furthermore, for those who do "do nuance", this quote has material that MIGHT be used to defend the cult of personality that passes for campaigning these days.

arendt

[Dogmudgeon]

1. That's classic Postman

Here is http://www.bigbrother.net/~mugwump/Postman/">Neil Postman Online.

Most of Paul Goodman's work has been web-ified, too, and I've found many of Marcuse's essays.

Try as they have to categorize him, Neil was sui generis while most of us are merely non compos mentis.

--p!

[Echo In Light]

2. A candidate's personality has zero to do with how they'll carry out the policies of vested interests

[ThomWV]

3. I read Orwell's Politics and the English Language yesterday

Dick Durbin mentioned Orwell's essay on Politics and the English Language* during the Judiciary Committee Hearing yesterday and it piqued my interest. So I found it on line and read it. May I suggest you hit the link below and give it a read yourself; afterward notice the difference between your style and that of the author of the quote. You did good, your quote - not so much.

* http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/language.html

[arendt]

4. Thanks for the homework assignment. Will do it this evening.

Clearly, I can't unpack your meaning without reading Orwell. Although, I think it was complimentary.

Are you one of those people who can do the Sunday Times crossword puzzle in pen? :-)

Thanks for the "sterile, academic" discussion.

arendt

[arendt]

5. Lack of comment demonstrates that "playing it safe" guarantees no readership. n/t

[blues90]

6. The media creates everything

It makes or breaks people from entertainers to politicians or businessess .

They can take a candidate and build him or her into a cult like figure and distort everything and wipe out all reason .

People buy into the idol crap and seem to forget people are just people and not better or god figures for lack of a better term .

They sell image and that's the problem .

These elections would be alot different if we had a real media which we will never have again because they have created a monster and this was only possible because people allowed this by buying into it .

They make it possible for one to forget to remember .

[arendt]

9. What's really scary is that people bring the TV mentality onto the net...

hence the rampant personality cults in GD-P and the refusal to discuss issues.

What percentage of the U.S. thinks abstractly on a regular basis anymore? Without abstraction, "class" vanishes; but race and gender survive.

arendt

[hfojvt]

7. a temp co-worker once told me he didn't vote

because 'they are all a bunch of crooks anyway' and another older friend told me she had worked so hard to elect a certain candidate and felt she was used and betrayed when he turned out to be a crook (no, it was not Nixon, it was some local office).

My question to both is, what about policy? Maybe they are all liars and crooks. Nobody is honest all the time. However, is there no difference between a crook who will raise the minimum wage and one who won't? Between a crook who will write laws benefitting rich people and big corporations and one who will write laws benefitting ordinary people?

Same with working for a candidate. If you are working to elect Mr. or Ms. X, then you might regret it later, but if you are working to elect a candidate who promotes certain policies, then you should not regret it if the policies get passed, and work like they were supposed to. Even if your candidate is indicted and goes to jail, the policies are still worth supporting.

I am not sure, however, what this OP is doing in GD since it is clearly about Obama. :evilgrin:

[arendt]

8. Thanks for the humor at the end. n/t

[scarletwoman]

10. Not being an academic sort -- although I suppose I qualify as being "sterile",

since I am a post-menopausal woman -- I don't presume to have anything edifying to add to your post.

I dropped out of college in the middle of my junior year, out of my fantasy double major of English and Education. 'twas Philosophy classes that did me in (that and LSD, I suppose -- it was the late 60s, after all).

Anyway, it seems very clear to me that for the majority of our fellow citizens (among whose number I must include a great many of our fellow DUers), the most dearly held, and most fervently fought-for, "self-interest" is the maintenance of denial.

sw

[hfojvt]

12. nuh-uh, no it isn't

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/37

Do we think things because we want to
Posted by hfojvt in The DU Lounge
Mon Feb 12th 2007, 01:53 PM
or because they seem true to us? It may depend on the person and the case. When there are rewards involved, like people who want to believe that tax cuts are a good idea because they want that extra money. But what about when there is no obvious dog in the hunt? Some of the stubborn arguing comes from a core belief - I want to believe that I am intelligent and informed, and even beneath that, I want to believe that I am worthy of respect and affection. Sort of like the Nomad effect. Nomad's prime directive was that everyone who made a mistake must be destroyed. Is that the human prime directive - everyone who makes a mistake must have their ego destroyed? Often that seems to be the theme in arguments or discussions - you are not only wrong, you are contemptible for being so.


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/48

that is the idea though
Posted by hfojvt in General Discussion
Mon Jun 11th 2007, 01:48 PM
The belief, not only that X is false, but that only a$$holes, racists, bigots, or the wilfully ignorant believe that X is true, or vice versa, depending on the issue.

[kineneb]

11. this is where politics and religion are similar

It is not what one says, or believes, but what one actually does.
"Good works" should be how we judge people, politicians and political parties. At least they should "do no harm."

Along with good works, one must follow the money. Grandpa used to scan thorough the ballot propositions (this is California, after all), and then turn to the arguments pages. There is where the "for and against" interest groups get listed. From the evidence in those pages, he could deduce who was providing the funding behind the scenes. (Personal example: anything supported by the "Howard Garvis" or "California tax payers" bunch, I vote against. They gave us the infamous Prop. 13, which gutted our education systems.)

A pretty face or convincing voice is simply not related to good policy. (And no, I did not vote for Arnie. Ugh. He is creepy.) We should look at the stands of the parties, and vote accordingly, not for someone with whom we would "have a beer."

How is that for "sterile, academic manner?"

[WeCanWorkItOut]

13. Personalities, as a substitute for sources of good information?

Is the real problem perhaps that people are suffering for lack of accessible
and trustworthy information on what's in the community's interest?

Health care is an example of an issue that's arguably too complex for most people to
take on alone. Remember, for instance, Bush's idea of changing the tax deduction for health benefits.
Not a bad concept. A few years ago The Economist listed it as one of the big factors contributing to
income inequality in the US. I calculate (back of the envelope) that it means a tax subsidy
of maybe $20 billion a year going to higher income groups.

It is also a factor in health cost inflation.

Anyway, from the point of view of what's in the interest of the larger community,
the proposal was worth talking about, and trying to see if we could beat it into shape.
But Rep. Pete Stark raised one legitimate worry, and then declined to hold hearings.
I believe some others (like Hillary) are taking it up. But an improved version could have
already gone through by now. A case of the system failing, through lack of understanding,
I believe.

My point is that there are tough concepts that we need to look at in political matters
like health care. But what individual has time and training to invest in analyzing concepts?
It's a job for groups. My concern is that in the absence of good sources that do
look for the good of the whole community, people are turning to religious groups,
to popular radio hosts, and, when all else fails, to their intuition about whether this
or that candidate really "feels our pain," or "has a vision of the future."