Liberalism in America has for me meant an orientation of self awareness and truth seeking, engagement in reason when working through policy, and an attitude of tolerance toward things different or new, among many other attributes. But I am starting to wonder if tolerance can be a mistake.
I am one of those people who enjoys discussing the issues. And not just political issues, but any kind of issue. It seems I was built that way. So it is probably not an accident that I get chided by my wife or friends from time to time when discussing either religion or politics. I always wondered why that was, since these two subjects seem to be among the most important subjects we could discuss as humans. How we organize ourselves as a society, and how we handle the mysteries of life and spirit are not trivial matters and deserve a lot of informed discussion. So I find myself seeking discussions about these things whenever I can.
Up until recently, it has been a mystery to me that the one group of people I have not been able to rationally discuss anything with are the self proclaimed "conservatives" and especially "Christian Conservatives". For example, I was sitting next to a person on a flight from Mexico a few years back, and noticed that he was reading a political novel that I had just finished. I asked him how he was liking it, and he stated that he was really enjoying it. I told him that I found the author's politics a little skewed but it was a good read for me too. Of course, that led to a political discussion. It turns out that this guy was some kind of deacon in a Christian church, and the conversation centered around this man's view (which the author of the book shared and had not disguised well at all) that all Muslims were out to kill us and that we needed to eradicate them. Of course, I disagreed with the man's outrageous contention by responding, "certainly you don't mean all of them". He said the Koran mandated that Muslims should kill all of us so we should kill them first. I tried to reason with him that there might be all kinds of Muslims just like there all kinds of Christians but it didn’t go anywhere. I asked him if he had read the Koran and he responded negatively apparently unaware of how that discredited his premise (never mind the bit about turning the other cheek). Not long after that, the man left his seat to go to the lavatory. While he was gone, a young man seated directly in front of me turned around and introduced himself and his wife and child. It turns out that this man was a software engineer for Microsoft and a practicing Muslim. What are the odds? He thanked me for "trying" as he put it. It wasn't long before the plane landed and I introduced the family to the "Christian". Then I asked if they looked like they wanted to kill any of us, since they were a Muslim family. The response was "they weren't real Muslims" and then he left the plane. He did all of this with this strange self assured smirk on his face. I was astounded at how much this man’s position was based on anything but reason and how little it mattered to him.
Here is another one. Several weeks ago, I went to our favorite Starbucks where we usually go on Saturday mornings after our walk and was visiting with some friends who happen to be strong supporters and friends of Darcy Burner, a Democratic candidate for the House from the Seattle area. Across the way, two guys apparently overheard us talking and began to engage us about Burner and what a dangerous liberal she was. Of course, this led to why would that be, and we got all this anti abortion stuff. It turns out they were "Christians". I pointed out that it was about choice not abortion, and then asked him if he was pro life. One of these guys responded that they were and I then asked if they believed in capital punishment. He said yes, and then I asked how it was that he could be pro life and support the death penalty. His answer was, "that’s different". That was it. That was his whole argument. After trying for some time to get a reasonable answer from him we all gave up. These guys were not to be reasoned with. Worse they were both seething after this engagement.
Finally, I remember a family member with whom I was having a discussion suggesting that Islam was a false religion. I asked her how she knew that and she said that the Bible said so with the implication that since the Bible stated so, all Muslims must know. She was literally in shock when I pointed out that Muslims study the Koran not the Bible. This woman is not a well educated woman, but she is not stupid either. She honestly believed that somehow Muslims should know that their religion is false because the Bible said so. One can easily argue that the Bible says no such thing, but her assumption of the universality of Biblical knowledge was rooted in some kind of major and willful ignorance of which she was completely unaware.
These are just a few of my recent interactions with these folks but they can all be characterized pretty much the same: utterly devoid of any logical consistency or reasonability and no matter how compelling the logic against their position, no inclination to even consider changing a position. This has always been puzzling to me since I can change my position and often do when facing a convincing rebuttal argument.
Intransient behavior like this has never seemed completely normal. So, I have been searching for some psychological reason for it, and have come close when stumbling on a couple of books. One is: The Authoritarians by Altemeyer, and the other is: Escape from Freedom by Fromm. You can google each of these. Suffice it to say that some people have developmental issues and wind up being fearful and self righteous, seeing things in black and white, who cannot or will not engage in critical thought. They tend to seek authority figures to resolve their issues for them and to live in very homogeneous groups where group-think prevails. And when one argues that maybe they or their leaders are wrong they see themselves under threat, and react defensively. Of course, it isn’t just Fundamentalist Christians who tend toward this personality, but it does seem that these are the people I have been running into and who have been driving our swing to right wing politics, and ultimately to some unique American form of totalitarianism if not checked.
At the top of the food chain, are narcissistic leaders whose toxic lust for power (Altemeyer calls them "social dominators") causes them to abandon any pretense at reasoned debate and to engage in demagoguery. Couple that with Fox News whose sole reason for existence is to make money for a foreigner while tearing the country apart by giving authoritarian bullies who lie for a living, a megaphone to spew their propaganda, and pander to the minions and their pathologies. And perhaps worst of all are those authoritarian elected officials who are spewing the same garbage and have completely abandoned any pretense of good faith deliberation. Finally, there are the minions themselves. They engage in some weird form of projection wherein they deem factual whatever they think or are told, never realizing the ontological truth that thoughts are not facts. So, they hang on every word spoken by Beck or Limbaugh, in many cases not even knowing what they mean, yet they show up for teaparties, disrupt townhalls, vote the way they are told, and who knows what else.
That is the part that scares me. Who knows what else? When one realizes that there is virtually no reasoning with authoritarian people under any circumstances and it really sinks in, one can imagine what this pathology can lead to. The extremes to which the right wing has gone over the past several years to either obtain or to hang on to power has been shocking and the stories are endless.
But for me, the murder of a doctor in Kansas and a census taker in Kentucky are intolerable. "Christian" leaders, rightwing politicians and their followers at the very least fostered a climate that dehumanized these men to the point where they became a legitimate target and I wonder who’s next. And they are working hard to dehumanize the President as well. For example, who thought up the idea of doing a Facebook poll on whether Obama should live or die? I have no doubt that some right wing organization is behind this and their intent is to put on the table the idea of assassination. Tom Freidman wrote an op-ed piece in the NYT today comparing our current situation to that of Isreal just before the Rabin assassination.
So I ask, have we taken the liberal principle of tolerance too far?
Enter Karl Popper. He wrote a great book called "Enemies of the Open Society" which I am reading. In it he offers what he calls the "Paradox of Tolerance" (see page 265). Loosely paraphrased, he points out that too much tolerance leads eventually to no tolerance. Thus, we must be prepared to defend a tolerant society against threats from the intolerant because if they become dominant we lose the tolerant society altogether. He goes on to say that it is not a good idea to suppress all intolerant movements, as long as they can be countered with rational argument and in turn public opinion. But, he says that we must be prepared to claim the right to defend a tolerant society, by force if necessary, because the intolerant may prefer not to engage on a rational basis. Their leaders may even denounce all argument as deceitful and encourage their followers to engage the use of "fists or pistols" as a rebuttal argument. He then states, "We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right to not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law." In other words, intolerant movements or those who would incite intolerance need to be deemed outlaws in order to protect the open society.
When I read Popper I made the connection between authoritarians and intolerance. I think it is clear that intolerance is just one attribute of the authoritarian personality. But according to Popper it is a very dangerous one, because intolerance is toxic to an open society since it precludes healthy deliberation of the policy issues facing any society. And if I am correct, and intolerance is part of the very fabric of the authoritarian personality, then one shouldn’t even expect that such people will opt to engage in civil discourse, and in my experience they don’t. The townhall meetings on healthcare were a classic example of this. The goal of the authoritarian attendees was to disrupt the discourse according to tactics scripted by their leadership, and not to debate the best way to provide health care to Americans. Altmeyer pointed out that they are so self unaware, and self righteous that they are often completely oblivious of how crazy they appear (condemning government programs and demanding hands off Medicare, for example).
One could ask how can we take such displays seriously. We have had crazies with us forever and we have survived. I contend that things have changed. The Republican party is largely dominated by authoritarians and they hold positions in some of the highest offices of the land. This had been facilitated by the Karl Rove strategy of winning through political annihilation which for a while had enough credibility to have been adopted by a whole national party. If one disagrees, simply liquidate them anyway possible, usually through personal attacks, using outright lies to discredit their ideas or their character. This new breed of politician finds debating an idea on its merits laughable. Why debate the issues when one can just use talk radio, Fox News, and even the floor of the congress to demonize anyone who disagrees with them. Competency, honesty, public service, and integrity of character, are all irrelevant to the goal of keeping or achieving power. I am now asking what could be more intolerant and un-democratic, or un-American?
I believe we have reached a point that Popper was referring to when a strong authoritarian faction stands in the way of the democratic process itself at a time in our history when serious problem solving is needed. The trainwreck created by the last administration is so immense that it will be difficult to undo even when there is good faith deliberation and legislation. But when the minority party is dominated by authoritarians, whose sole stated goal is to see the current administration fail and risk seeing the nation fail just so it can reassume power, we have crossed a line. I think it is high time we decide not to tolerate them and claim the right to defend our open society by proclaiming those who will not deliberate or legislate in good faith the outlaws that they are.
We must also consider those who aid and abet the miscreant politicians. We can start with Rupert Murdoch and his cast of authoritarian bullies who are engaged in a campaign to mislead the American people, and tear us apart at a time when national necessity requires that we pull together. The fact that this network even exists is a slap in the face to all of us who want to be factually informed regarding the important issues of the day. Journalistic malpractice hardly covers the outrageous offerings of this network. If the FCC took seriously its responsibility to the public, Fox News and much of talk radio wouldn’t exist. They have never acted in the public interest and are damaging to the whole idea of an informed citizenry. Again, they are outlaws and should be treated as such.
I never dreamed I would see a census worker murdered for his public service in this country. I never dreamed that I would see a birther movement, which is a masked attempt to dehumanize the President. I never dreamed that the idea of death panels would get any traction. I was shock to see a lying congressman calling the President a liar in a joint address and being treated like a hero for doing so. I am now reading where school kids who were celebrating black history month are being used as props by right wingers to imply some kind of sinister indoctrination project. Last month, it was an address by the President to school kids about the merits of working hard to better themselves and the country that was the big threat. Now Obama is being attacked for doing what he can to get the US scheduled for the Olympic Games, by the minority leader of the house.
Perhaps it is time to start calling these people what they really are. Thugs! So what if they wear suits. They are still thugs and we are far too tolerant of them.
Yesterday, I had real hope. A hero congressman got it. He knows that tolerance can go too far. That congressman was Alan Grayson from Florida, who spoke the truth on the house floor that people are dying everyday because of our messed up healthcare. Sure enough, within hours the thugs in suits started striking back. And note that no one on the right has actually tried to rebut what he said. They are simply demonizing him personally. I thank him for stating openly that there are things that are not to be tolerated, such as insurance companies killing people by denying or rescinding insurance and the corrupt politicians that support them. Let’s support him and all who are unwilling to tolerate the intolerant.
It is time for all of us to bring this message to our leadership. They have an obligation to the nation to protect it from authoritarianism. For example, let’s encourage the senate to get rid of the 60 vote rule and replace it with a simple majority to bring issues to the floor. We can’t personally arrest those who are so damaging to democracy or even get them out of office but we can render them largely irrelevant and at this point we are obligated to do so in every way possible before we no longer can.