I've been having a discussion with some friends of mine about the state of political debate in America and especially the role pundits play in the debate. I've excerpted some of my comments and posted them here. I've been watching the pundits for sometime now and noting their style, but the debate really got started when Ann Coulter called some 9/11 widows "harpies" and suggested they should pose in playboy. I used this as an excellent example of how I believe the pundits are degrading political debate in America, and working to polarize the nation. For the record, she said:
They're "harpies" who seem to be "enjoying their husbands' deaths...and by the way, how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy.”
You’ll note that there isn't much in the way of verifiable statements in her claim. It really just seems like the ragings of an angry lady who disagrees with someone, and feels obligated to hurl personal insults their way, much as a seven year old would do. She's entitled to hurl her insults, and I'm sure she is encouraged to do so by her publisher, and finds solace in her bank balance after creating such controversy. All that said, I seriously doubt these widows are "enjoying" their husbands death.
The issue for me is the degradation of political debate that has occured over the past 5-10 years. I'm not saying all was rosy back in the day. That would make be silly. But the growing partisanship of America and other Western countries has led to some horrible political commentary. And being the real kings of media this kind of stuff is seen best in America.
In regard to Ann’s recent insults: everyone has a right to criticize government policy. They can criticize until they go blue in the face. These ladies' have a certain media cache because their husbands were killed by terrorists. Many media agencies cover them because it makes a good story. Media agencies like selling stories, it puts food on the table.
Likewise, others have a right to counter these ladies' claims and present their arguements. Debate can be cathartic, productive, and entertaining. But Ann Coulter and other pundits on the right and the left can't constrain themselves to debate, they have to throw insults and astronomically ridiculous rhetoric into the mix (pose in playboy? What the hell is that about?). This is good for nothing except ratings.
I understand most people don't really care much for politics if it isn't packaged like professional wrestling and include mythic figures playing cartoonesque caricatures. But I wish people would start tuning this kind of garbage out (and the equivalent on the left, this is a multi-polar problem) so some decent debate can be heard.
This kind of hatred and rhetoric does no good and only acts to polarize people. It creates enemies, it doesn't seek solutions.
I'm not saying people can't voice their opinion about other's motivations or criticize the critiques of others, these are essential. But over the top insults are simply childish. It’s unfortunate people continue to take pundits seriously when they reduce themselves to such antics. Because essentially they're just responding to a demand of the market.
As I mentioned earlier, for me it isn't a question of pundits telling the truth or not. While some of them do occasionaly misrepresent the facts, this is virtually unavoidable as a journalist. While they should be kept to a minimum, mistakes do happen. The issue for me is one of constructive debate and criticism over spiteful attacks and partisanship. The former undoubtedly has positive effects, while the latter does little but polarize people.
I find this a very fascinating subject. I haven't come across any standard terminology to address it yet so I've started calling it ideologism. It is demonstrated in the media, mainstream and alternative, when people make judgements based upon people's political convictions as opposed to their actions. It is made worse when the ideologism is used to lump people together as if there were some sort of unity, when in reality no such agreement exists.
In her recent book Ms Coulter claims that there is a "consensus position that liberals are godless." There is no such consensus, and I think most rational people would agree it is a statement bordering upon the absurd. Plenty of people who may identify themselves as liberal also have devout religious beliefs. Whether or not their belief system and subsequent moral framework coincides with Ms. Coulter's is another matter.
When a pundit makes a claim that conservatives are war-mongers or liberals are traitors they aren't really expressing anything beyond their own prejudices. Furthermore they are making the mistaken assumption that there are commonly held consensus positions amongst the left and the right which can be generalized to such a degree, when in fact no such consensus exists. It does a disservice in two ways.
Firstly, such generalizing which is usually based on the actions of one or a few individuals, takes the pundits impression of those individuals and haphazardly applies it to millions of people. This is simply poor logic and bad argumentation. I can't say because Queen Elizabeth is rich and stuck up that English people are rich and stuck up. My conclusion may or may not be true, but my argumentation is certainly flawed. Likewise I can't say because I've encountered some radically racist and purportedly religious Southern conservatives that conservatives are bigotted racists who hide behind the facade of a perverted religion. It would just be STUPID, and act to polarize people.
Beyond artifically lumping people together, and using poor logic to further their arguments, the pundits do people a disservice by judging them on their beliefs as opposed to their actions. They create a false dilemma by claiming there are two groups of people: conservatives and liberals. When in reality there is a complex variegated spectrum of political belief. They then utilize this false dilemma to vilify one particular camp. They claim that conservatives are x or liberals are y and thereby condemn people for what they believe as opposed to what they do. It would be fair to say "I disagree with those crazy bastards who protest at military funerals, in fact I hate it" because those crazy bastards are doing something which you disagree with. But to disagree with some sort of imagined unified political camp is silly, because it doesn't exist. One needs to disagree with specifics, preferrably with actual deeds.
The left-right political scale is a rather out-dated product of the French Revolution. It is useful for making incredibly broad statements about huge numbers of people, or statements about particular policies or actions. But it is seriously lacking as a way to represent the complexity of political beliefs. Liberals can believe in God, conservatives can be gay, left-wingers can oppose abortion, right-wingers can accept evolution, and the exceptions go on and on and on. When there are so many exceptions to a rule one must question the usefulness of the rule. I'm not saying nobody should ever say left-wing, right-wing, conservative, or liberal. I'm saying that when they use the terms they should realize the inherent limitations that they have.
It is because the pundits I've come across don't argue reasonably that I have little respect for their writings. I find them interesting from a sociological perspective, but as far as political analysis goes they generally churn out pap that can't stand up to very basic scrutiny.
