Avedon Carol kindly responded in the Comments to yesterday's post citing Jon Stewart about why so many Americans are so uninvolved with politics. Her thoughts:
There's also the part where in an oppressive state, keeping your head down is the only protection you might have. Such a state will go after its enemies. If your first allegiance is to your family or to your own survival, the last thing you want to do is draw the government's attention to you by criticizing them.
Seems to me that this POV is part of the disconnect between many left-leaning bloggers and that vast swathe of America that gets them so riled up. If you buy into that point of view, you'd have to be a person who believes that America is today a neo-Fascist state with such tight command and control over our daily lives that the average citizen rightfully fears the repercussions should s/he speak out against the state. I seriously doubt that mindset pervades Middle America today. Hell, even I don't believe it.
Yes, I'm aware of Gitmo and situations like Jose Padilla's, and the super-secret monitoring devices the NSA has that can read all our emails, and the provisions of the Patriot Act, and I am concerned about the state of civil liberties in America today. And who knows? It might even be possible that somebody in a back room in Washington DC is putting me on an "Enemies of the State" list because I've expressed my opposition to the war in Iraq.
But it seems to me that a left-leaning blogger like me is much more likely to run into trouble in the workplace because of my blog than any other possible outcome. I don't see anything going on in America today that makes me feel that my own physical security is in any way at risk by the state for my point of view.
There's a passage in the William Gibson novel "Pattern Recognition" that bears repeating here:
Win, the Cold War security expert, ever watchful, had treated paranoia as though it were something to be domesticated and trained.... he wouldn’t allow it to spread, become jungle. He cultivated it on its own special plot, and checked it daily for news it might bring: hunches, lateralisms, frank anomalies.Win's first line of defense, within himself: to recognize that he was only a part of something larger. Paranoia, he said, was fundamentally egocentric, and every conspiracy theory served in some way to aggrandize the believer.
But he was also fond of saying, at other times, that even paranoid schizophrenics have enemies.
Comments (2)
"you'd have to be a person who believes that America is today a neo-Fascist state"
I'm not sure about this. For instance, the government doesn't necessarily have to have morphed into a "neo-Fascist state" for families to feel that it is best to keep quiet and not "rock the boat".
All it takes is an atmosphere of paranoia, some corruption, and taking away (or diffusing) a few civil rights. Here's an example: "Who are the Brain Police?" (http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2005/07/who-are-brain-police.html). It's a personal story of how larger political changes affect people on a personal level.
"But it seems to me that a left-leaning blogger like me is much more likely to run into trouble in the workplace because of my blog than any other possible outcome."
It depends on what you're trying to achieve. If you keep your head down, and only transgress in certain ways, then, yes, you're not likely to feel the affects of being intimidated by the state. If you're Silkwood, Cindy Sheehan, or folks that try and critique large, powerful corporations, that's a different matter. (Kristen Anderberg is also another example.) Then you may quickly realize that the power and resources are heavily weighted against you, and that the state is not on your side.
Anyhow, my disagreement does not interfere with this statement: I like your blog. ;)
Posted by Sour Duck | October 4, 2005 9:58 AM
Well, you're not supposed to feel oppressed, at least not in a country where the major mechanism of oppression is the constant proclamation of "freedom".
It's like the steering on your car- if you had to keep turning the wheel one way and then the other, in order to go straight, you'd probably take it to the shop to be fixed.
Nor are social controls imposed on people who don't matter. If you're the janitor, you can pretty much do anything as long as you also do your job.
I would suggest that a large and sudden swing of opinion to some degree represents people who formerly didn't care to appear opinionated, but have now decided that the negative sanctions are no longer as effective- possibly because the negative sanction was the imputation of being a minority, obviously cancelled when the majority becomes obvious.
For example, about 60% of us think marijuana should be legal, but we're still regarded as a 'minority'. When we number 80% or 90% of the population, the approbrium of being a 'minority' will be cancelled, and more people will speak out.
And that's even before we confront the real nature of the oppression. Which, you'll be relieved to know, I have no intention of doing at this time.
Posted by serial catowner | October 5, 2005 6:59 AM