Category: Thoughts

Doublethink

Apparently, people’s heads don’t explode when they believe two contradictory things.

Actually I’ve often regarded it as an important ability– if you can’t believe things you know to be false, or believe two mutually exclusive things, you can’t really function properly in society. I mean– you’d never sleep at night. Lies are bad, but I am a liar. Gasoline is wasteful, but I own a gas-powered vehicle. Investors should be socially responsible, but I hold shares in Child Labor International. Now, I try to keep my contradictions to a minimum, but I know they exist. I believe in moral consistency, yet I am morally inconsistent.

I try especially to avoid counter-factual beliefs. Merely failing to meet my own ideals is forgivable, easy to rationalize. Rejecting the “reality-based community” in favor of ideology, or worse, insisting that black is in fact white (or that grey is in fact dark white, or maybe light black)… do I hold similarly untenable beliefs in my political fantasyland?

Yes, I know it’s a fantasyland. I drink at the People’s Republik. I don’t know anyone who actually favors the president. I am surprised when I see pro-Bush ads, when I hear the word “liberal” used as an insult (we say “progressive” nowadays, which reminds me of the disappearance of the words “negro” and “Afro-American,”) And yet I consider myself more reality-based than the crowds out in Ohio baying for the drawing and quartering of their gay neighbors because don’t you know what they’re doing to the soil?.

Shrill Accusations

Busy Busy Busy has a great summary of Max Boot’s commentary on the peaceful nature of democratically elected governments: if the US had a democratically elected government it would be far less likely to be involved in the Iraq war. You know, in the early days of the administration, people who pointed out how Bush was really screwing up were called “shrill.” Well, more and more people have gotten more and more shrill. And it’s all cataloged in the Shrill Blog. People are getting very, very upset about the political situation in this country. You have to remember, we’re being led by someone who lost the election and was appointed by Antonin Scalia & co. What on earth could possibly alleviate the anger of such problems?

Yesterday Mark Gordon suggested to me that baseball and beer was like bread and circuses. Which is pretty accurate. On the other hand, the Whole Foods subsidiary Bread and Circus is definitely all about bread and circuses. Which is to say, the aspiration to consume beautifully arranged expensive gourmet food is a pastime which can distract us from the troubles of our lives. And I am not opposed to that anymore. Why should I suffer? Why should anyone?

Bring on the soma, says I. Bring on the booze. Bring on the Valium, the Wega, the PlayStation, the Orgasmatron, the Buspar, the Viagra. Lower the standards, says I, open the floodgates for the dopamine-oriented culture of intoxication. I am not afraid of living in oblivion. I am afraid of not living in oblivion. I am afraid of having to feel. If I’m lucky I’ll get into Corian and cork and 10/15 ARMs and not scag and small arms, but it’s all the same in the end. As Margaret Atwood says in Happy Endings, John and Mary die. John and Mary Die. John and Mary die.

And as they say, every living thing dies alone.

It seems like a good idea when you’re drunk and your hot incumbent suggests it

I don’t pretend to understand the current accounts deficit, much less know what a safe value for it is. However, look at the last paragraph for an obvious lie by Bush:

Bush argues that Mr. Kerry, playing to a labor union constituency, has begun flirting with protectionism as an answer to the nation’s trade gap; he contrasts that with what he says is a strong White House effort to negotiate more trade agreements with individual nations, regional groups and at the World Trade Organization.

OK, what about the steel and textile tarrifs? What about the way you torpedoed the Cancun talks? Doha, anyone? I don’t understand how anyone can vote for this man. Here’s a good example of the rhetoric of people who support him. It’s a constant exercise in self-delusion. How long can you pretend to be the party of fiscal responsibility while tearing the economy apart?

This reminds me of being at a party at a friend’s house; his girlfriend was visiting from out of town and everyone but me was already drunk when I arrived. The girlfriend had tripped on a sidewalk (where she’s from, they don’t have huge potholes) and skinned her knee. I advised washing the wound, applying Neosporin and bandaging with gauze or something from the nearby convenience store. The boyfriend figured they’d be fine with paper towels and duct tape. She listened to the boyfriend.

In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been so angry at them. She was obviously going to listen to him, because she was drunk and he was her boyfriend. At the time, I was totally unable to comprehend how anyone could ignore the obviously correct statements I was making and decide to bandage a cut with paper towels and duct tape. But a lot of things seem like a good idea when you’re drunk and your hot boyfriend suggests them.

Like Bush. He’s hot. You’re drunk on American imperial power. He’s wearing a flight suit and adjusting his package and saying Mission Accomplished. He’s already fucking you, it must be love. You’ll regret it when you wake up, but by then he’ll be on his heavily fortified ranch in Crawford with a billion dollars in gold and some assault rifles, and you’ll be homeless and sick and denied health care because you’re poor and not religious enough.

This is the only possible explanation for voting for Bush.