Them vs. Us
I shouldn’t criticize Granny D. right after she died (she was a Democratic congresswoman, in case you never heard of her), but I happened to see one of her speeches on the Michael Moore website, and it seems like an ideal example of non-centrism and Us vs Them thinking. She was probably a nice and well-meaning person, and I don’t completely disagree with her whole speech. But I want to show some quotes from her speech that I think are examples of someone who seemed to be irrationally and one-sidedly caught up in an ideology.
GD: “Let us consider the self-repression of the political right … Where authority and power flow down from above, from heaven to the White House to husbands and ayatollahs, the free and joyful living of people can be quite the enemy. If you will remember the free spirit of those flower children who grew up in the 1960s, for example, you will also remember the harsh attitude that attended to their joys from the more traditional, often more rural, elements of our society”
So the flower children of the 1960s represent her ideal type of free and joyful person. She must not have noticed that most of the 1960s flower children finished college and got jobs and are now wearing ties and driving SUVs. Flower childhood was not a responsible way to live, so people grew out of it. Maybe those traditional rural people had reasons for not wanting their kids to become free and joyful hippies.
GD: “those in the clan of authority are not given the privilege–the natural right–of living their own lives. They do as they are told, say and think what they are told. Smothered is their curiosity and their healthy skepticism, and also their imagination, joy, freedom, and lust for life itself. When they see others actually living lives, they react with anger, as if someone had cut to the front of a line that, for them, never moves.”
GD:: “the authority clan parades itself as pro-life while it is truly more like a cult of death. Having died themselves, strangled by authority and fear, they cannot wish happy lives for others–they cling only to that magic symbol of what might have been. They relate to the unborn baby selfishly; it is themselves: unborn, unlived, still hoping for a life.”
So being against abortion is actually a symptom of what sounds like a serious mental derangement. Granny D. can’t imagine anyone having any sane reasons for not liking abortion, or being ambivalent about abortion, or being against late abortion.
GD:: “How horrible to be enslaved to the wrong way of thinking at such a time of national crisis! We owe it to our friends and neighbors to free them if we can, so they might stand with us.”
GD: “Imagine that your friend is very much pro-life and pro-war and doesn’t see the illness of her mental conflict … I think you might notice that this friend of yours lives a slipcover-protected life and has not even allowed herself the freedoms of a good fantasy life. Let’s repair that … Let me suggest that we take her to a good arts district, rent her a studio apartment full of art supplies above a good sidewalk café, find her a lover and come back in ninety days to see if her politics have changed. As she lives a real life, as she explores her own potential, she will learn to let others live and enjoy their lives, too.”
So, there aren’t any women who are artists and have lovers, and yet are against abortion? So all you have to do, to make someone think abortion is perfectly ok, is give them art supplies and a lover. Simple.
GD: “She will want to help the young woman artist next door who gets herself into trouble. She will even begin to be amused and impressed instead of angered and depressed by the Clintons and other lively, joyful, free-living people of this beautiful earth.”
So Clinton wasn’t a compulsive tom cat after all. He was just so lively and joyful and free-living he couldn’t keep his fly zipped. And Hillary didn’t mind, no not at all. She just loved the joyful freedom of being betrayed by her husband in front of the whole world.
Is anyone except me thinking “huh?” right now?
GD: “We must help people see the mental traps that they are victim to, and we must do this by telling it like we see it, by asking them to see that the pro-life, pro-war movement is really a cult of death, that fundamental Christianity represents the opposite of Christ’s teachings, that authoritarian control and elite profiteering are the strings of the far right’s puppet show …. Let us indeed believe that all people are equal, but let us not assume that all political opinions are equal, for some are toxic and sociopathic and require our loving intervention.”
Yes the Democrats are the party of lively joyful love and light, while the Republicans are followers of Darth Vader.
Well anyway, I think Granny D.’s world view is quite common these days. If you loved the 1960s and the flower children, and you still love them, then you might agree with her. If you hated the 1960s then, and you still hate the 1960s, then you might be a Republican. And if you sort of liked some things about the 1960s, but didn’t like other things, then you might be an ambivalent centrist today.
Ambiance 
wj said,
March 17, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Well, that is certainly an impressive example of the truth that the far left has just as solid a belief structure as the far right. A belief that their view is the only possible sane one. A belief that facts are “mere details,” which cannot be allowed to color their view of how things are — or would be, but for the evil machinations of those of differing views.
As I say, impressive. And your reactions make a fine illustration of why, even if we agree with some bits of what one of these people (from either side) say, it is enormously difficult not to simply reject all of their arguments due to the insanity (if I may use the term) of their overall presentation.
Rod said,
March 18, 2010 at 9:35 pm
“They relate to the unborn baby selfishly; it is themselves: unborn, unlived, still hoping for a life.”
And here I thought my objection to abortion had something to do with other people not having a chance to live a life. Whenever our discussion turns to analyzing the motives of those with whom we disagree, we are at risk for this level of projection.