Tuesday, July 05, 2005
(6:42 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Sick of the dualism, Manichean and otherwise
I'm tired of dualistic thinking. More than that, I'm tired of the call for "balance" between the supposed "two sides." First, the two sides are not some kind of eternal form of humanity. There have not always been liberals and conservatives -- in the future, God willing, there no longer will be. There is absolutely no reason at all in the world why the truth has to be equidistant between these two supposed "sides." It could be that the truth is basically on one side in a particular case. It could be that the truth is outside of the range offered by the two polls; in fact, this is statistically most likely to be true on any given issue. For instance, which side of the political debate in this country is correct about the Electoral College? Neither side, because neither is advocating amending the Constitution to eliminate it, which is the truest and best approach to the Electoral College.This brings me to my next point: the political spectrum is not a circle. That is, if you go far enough left or right, you do not end up at Stalin/Hitler. (I assume that across the diameter of the Political Circle from Stalin/Hitler, one would find someone like Eisenhower.) I once had the Politics-as-Circle concept deployed on me to claim that I, as a radical leftist, was very close to George W. Bush -- presumably because I had worked my way back around to Bush's radical right-wingery. Was this person claiming that Bush was a Nazi, and thus that I could reach him by way of Stalinism? I assume not, because people always only deploy the Politics-as-Circle concept in the interest of promoting reasoned moderation in light of the excess of "both sides."
Ah, both sides are excessive! And equally so! How convenient. Once again, we're back to measuring the distance between two points and standing halfway between them, except that this time, we are looking at Stalin and Hitler instead of the Democrats and the Republicans. The result of both equations is still Eisenhower, because Democrats and Republicans are equidistant from Stalin and Hitler, respectively. So let's say at 12:00, we have Hitler/Stalin. At 3:00, we have the Republicans. At 9:00 are the Democrats. And at 6:00 (the "sweet spot") we have the point that I have been calling "Eisenhower." That is what we are going for: Eisenhower. Calm, reasoned moderation. Building interstate highway systems. Who could argue with that?
Is it possible to locate other leaders on this Clock-of-Politics? Presumably Mao would be close to 12:00, Lenin closer to 11:00. Clinton would be at 6:30 (radical leftist!), Bush at 1:15. How astoundingly helpful this is! And I just have to set my Clock-of-Politics to 6:00 in order to be a reasonable person. Or, using another metaphor, I need to kick my fieldgoal between the two uprights of the Democrats and the Republicans, left and right, Stalin and Hitler. And when I succeed in hitting the truth-zone between the uprights, someone will hold up his arms straight above his head and the announcer will say: "It's good!" What fun this is! All of these helpful metaphors.
Of course, we need the whole circle, the circle of human politics -- Moses at 10:30, Joshua at 11:00, Samson at 6:30, Josiah at 2:00; Gilgamesh at 5:00, Tiglath-Pileser III at 4:00; Nero at midnight or noon, Marcus Aurelius at 6:00... onward through history! It always applies! There have always been left and right, liberal and conservative, Stalin and Hitler. The way of reason is to move between all of them, coming up with the same reasoned answers in the middle of the same polls, everyone always somehow having access to these polls between which they must find themselves -- but no one, I fear, stopping the swing of the Political Pendulum, or the herky-jerky timekeeping of the Political Watchmaker God! Would we say that Russia started at 1:00, then swung wildly to 11:00 (Lenin), moving to 12:00 (Stalin), and then -- mirabile dictu! -- continuing to work their way clockwise, having arrived only at 2:30, even up to this day!
Yes, I am tired of polls and extremes and circles where historically distinct and opposed movements become the same thing -- because extreme! Because extreme is when you actually have a strong opinion and don't pat the ego of your opponents! And then you're in danger of becoming just like those you hate, because you both meet at the top of the circle, which is a genocidal bloodbath!
This is too hard. I give up on political debate. Is that located anywhere between the two extremes?
