04/17/07
Radley Balko, on Reason's Hit and Run, rightly objects to this bit of hyperbolic nitwittery by someone who usually speaks less dishonestly . . . that is, by Barack Obama:
"There's also another kind of violence that we're going to have to think about. It's not necessarily the physical violence, but the violence that we perpetrate on each other in other ways," he said, and goes on to catalogue other forms of "violence."
There's the "verbal violence" of Imus.
There's "the violence of men and women who have worked all their lives and suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them because their job is moved to another country."
To extend the definition of violence to forms of speech that are not designed to start a fight, or to the withdrawing of a form of coöperation, is precisely the kind of thing we expect from demagogues. I don't remember hearing such dangerous nonsense from my favorite Democratic candidate for the presidency before. That we do now might be the result of the corrupting influence of Obama's goal: the most powerful position on the planet.
Conflating violence with other things we don't like is, of course, a good way to set up a violent opposition to those other things, such as Imus's silly racist remarks, or outsourcing. There is indeed a market for over-reaction. Obama seems to be pandering to that market, now.
I hope he doesn't continue. (The likelihood of him getting my vote just about disappeared; I had indeed contemplated voting for him before this.)
His full comments, of course, will strike some people as acceptable. To me, his whole speech sounded like bad pop humanism. He ascribes the prevalance of violence to "our incapacity to recognize ourselves in each other. To not understand that we are all connected, fundamentally as a people." Since much violence is within families, I suspect that this is not correct. The problem with violence is that some people cannot control their tempers, or have not engaged in habits of self-control, or not given others' their due as separate from themselves.
This separation of people is one of the keys to behaving well. Close connection with others can sometimes erode that separation, and allow a person to think and feel that others should cave in to his (or her) demands, to expect others to serve him (or her). When this does not happen, violence.
He also trotted out the classic line "I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper." And later extended the idea that my brother lives in Darfur. It's amazing how J's irony in the story of Cain and Abel has become a cliche amongst people who are trying to erode the standard of separateness that was assumed by Cain and his interlocutor, J's deity.
We are, he says, "trapped in this . . . belief that somehow we can impose our wills on each other, that we can differentiate ourselves and make ourselves feel better than one another because of the accidents of birth or race or gender."
Of course, politics is the mechanism by which we impose our wills on each other in the biggest way. As a Democrat, he feels it his most important mission to impose his will (and his fellow party-members' wills) on those who disagree, whether it be regarding seat belts or charity or how to run a transportation system. All must conform to the majority view, all must support the plans of the majority, and all must contribute to those plans' financial support.
The political idea is not that far from the criminal idea. They are not the same, but they are analogous.
And, of course, it doesn't matter what the origins of a trait are, their value holds because of their utility. We can and must differentiate ourselves from each other. We are separate persons. That separation allows for what dignity we have.
I bet Senator Obama knows this. But it's just not the kind of wisdom that a politician has any reason to trot out after a time of great slaughter.
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