I disagree pretty strongly, on both points. Taking them one at a time.
He does seem rather biased towards the left-wing
He is, but that's beside the point. This isn't about left vs. right wing -- this is about what this country *is*, and what it stands for. The complaints he's leveling aren't "left-wing" complaints: they're points that any good right-winger would have made, even a decade ago.
You're a little too young to see it, I suspect, but the notion that this country is condoning torture is *horrifying* to many of us, left or right, precisely because it is very new. The whole *point* of the modern US, and the basis of its stature worldwide, was supposed to be that we were above that kind of thing. Its not about left and right -- it's about basic morality, and the notion that the country has gotten so stupid and amoral as to explicitly cross those lines (and play semantic games to try and justify it) is repulsive.
Ditto on the civil liberties thing. There are lots of people on both sides of the aisle who see the current administration as fundamentally undermining -- *deliberately* undermining -- the Constitution. Do some deeper reading, and you'll find that the *serious* conservative thinkers don't like this trend any more than the liberals do. It's just the talk-show-host crowd -- the stupid, unthinking populists who call themselves "conservatives" but are actually just herding sheep -- who don't give a damn about civil liberties.
The notion that only the "left" cares about rights and morality is one of the great lies of the neo-conservative movement. It's perhaps the single greatest reason why I consider it crucial that they be crushed politically, so that more sensible conservatives can take the Republican party back.
As for outrage, I believe you've missed the point. In particular, I think you missed this paragraph, or misunderstood it:
It is, for me, all about modulation. It is about remembering that outrage does not necessarily equal misery. Outrage does not mean you must wallow in fear and fatalism and yank out your hair and wake up every morning hating the world and hating yourself and hating humanity for being so stupid/numb/blind and wondering how the hell you can escape it all.
Proper outrage *isn't*, at heart, fundamentally about anger. That sort of outrage burns itself out, and leads to the "outrage fatigue" that he's talking about. Serious, principled outrage is intellectual, disciplined, patient but persistent. It's not giving in just because you aren't winning right now, but instead changing tack while continuing to press for that which is Right. It's recognizing that the "I can't accomplish anything in this day and age" argument isn't realism, it's laziness.
I agree with him 100%, on pretty much all points. Anger and outrage are *not* the same thing -- they may be related, but as you say, anger will burn you out. But proper outrage is simply saying This Is Wrong, and doing what you can to make it right. Because without people standing up to convenient Wrongs, those Wrongs win. (As probably wasn't said by Burke, but is nonetheless largely true, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".)
It's easy to be lazy. It's easy to say "I'll just live well, and They can do what they will". But that fundamentally misses the point of America, which is collective responsibility for our government. *We* are responsible for what the government does, and if the government commits evil and we do nothing to oppose it, we are fully culpable in that evil. That sense of outrage -- that fundamental sense that there *is* such a thing as Right and Wrong, and that the Right must be sustained -- is what keeps the government in check. It was the force that motivated the founding of this country, and it's the force that keeps it a place worth being proud of...
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Date: 2008-02-27 03:40 pm (UTC)He does seem rather biased towards the left-wing
He is, but that's beside the point. This isn't about left vs. right wing -- this is about what this country *is*, and what it stands for. The complaints he's leveling aren't "left-wing" complaints: they're points that any good right-winger would have made, even a decade ago.
You're a little too young to see it, I suspect, but the notion that this country is condoning torture is *horrifying* to many of us, left or right, precisely because it is very new. The whole *point* of the modern US, and the basis of its stature worldwide, was supposed to be that we were above that kind of thing. Its not about left and right -- it's about basic morality, and the notion that the country has gotten so stupid and amoral as to explicitly cross those lines (and play semantic games to try and justify it) is repulsive.
Ditto on the civil liberties thing. There are lots of people on both sides of the aisle who see the current administration as fundamentally undermining -- *deliberately* undermining -- the Constitution. Do some deeper reading, and you'll find that the *serious* conservative thinkers don't like this trend any more than the liberals do. It's just the talk-show-host crowd -- the stupid, unthinking populists who call themselves "conservatives" but are actually just herding sheep -- who don't give a damn about civil liberties.
The notion that only the "left" cares about rights and morality is one of the great lies of the neo-conservative movement. It's perhaps the single greatest reason why I consider it crucial that they be crushed politically, so that more sensible conservatives can take the Republican party back.
As for outrage, I believe you've missed the point. In particular, I think you missed this paragraph, or misunderstood it:
It is, for me, all about modulation. It is about remembering that outrage does not necessarily equal misery. Outrage does not mean you must wallow in fear and fatalism and yank out your hair and wake up every morning hating the world and hating yourself and hating humanity for being so stupid/numb/blind and wondering how the hell you can escape it all.
Proper outrage *isn't*, at heart, fundamentally about anger. That sort of outrage burns itself out, and leads to the "outrage fatigue" that he's talking about. Serious, principled outrage is intellectual, disciplined, patient but persistent. It's not giving in just because you aren't winning right now, but instead changing tack while continuing to press for that which is Right. It's recognizing that the "I can't accomplish anything in this day and age" argument isn't realism, it's laziness.
I agree with him 100%, on pretty much all points. Anger and outrage are *not* the same thing -- they may be related, but as you say, anger will burn you out. But proper outrage is simply saying This Is Wrong, and doing what you can to make it right. Because without people standing up to convenient Wrongs, those Wrongs win. (As probably wasn't said by Burke, but is nonetheless largely true, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".)
It's easy to be lazy. It's easy to say "I'll just live well, and They can do what they will". But that fundamentally misses the point of America, which is collective responsibility for our government. *We* are responsible for what the government does, and if the government commits evil and we do nothing to oppose it, we are fully culpable in that evil. That sense of outrage -- that fundamental sense that there *is* such a thing as Right and Wrong, and that the Right must be sustained -- is what keeps the government in check. It was the force that motivated the founding of this country, and it's the force that keeps it a place worth being proud of...