One of the issues that has haunted my process has been one that haunted many post-structuralist and postmodern thinkers (such as Deleuze and Guattarri: the question posed by Wilhelm Reich:
What is it about people that seem to seek out their own oppression?
I would also argue that this question preoccupied Sartre given the amount of writing he put into dismissing, in rational way, the very a-rational experience of solipsism –especially in Being and Nothingness. And we can assume this came out of his experience with Nazism (a form of fascism, mind you (during the German occupation of France.
And looking at it now, I realize that one of cool things about it is that I get to stand on the shoulders of continental giants and approach it from the uniquely American perspective of a progressive living among Midwestern conservatives –many of which I consider good and dear friends. And having learned to listen to their little war rallies (that is against progressive policy (and not react (what good would it do me since I can always write about it later (I find myself in the privileged position of having a front row seat to the really bad reasoning they are engaging in. And this, I have to admit, is their gift to me since they also consider me a good and dear friend. This is based on an interesting dynamic in that 1: I never attack back because I always know I can think about it then write about it later, 2: this allows them to indulge their egoistic notions that they are winning the debate (that is since they know where I stand (and the delusion that they are capable of converting me by the sheer weight of their “Truth”, and 3: they never read what I write about them. It’s a fair exchange as far as I’m concerned.
This is because for reasons I will try to describe below, progressives, by their inherent nature are far better writers than speakers because they are never light enough on their feet (that is because of the burden of complexity (to analyze an argument and respond to it as compared to the conservatives who tend to work from popularly accepted assumptions. I listen to my friends’ arguments and am tongue-tied, even though I know there is something wrong. But it doesn’t take long, when I get by myself, before I figure it out. But by then, it’s too late. And I will generally never see that argument again to pose the argument I have built against it. And it’s not that it would do me any good. They almost always work in packs, and will always find some way to dance around it with yet more bad reasoning.
Now to give you an example of how they work: such a conservative, having read this, will turn to common doxa and argue that maybe the reason I can’t respond on the fly is because I am wrong. But, of course, this will be based on the limited reading of this particular post with no consideration of the thousands of words I have written dismissing their arguments elsewhere. They wallow in the gotcha moment.
It’s as if they’re stuck in the language games they indulge in with complete indifference to the existential leap those games must make into reality in order have any reference to reality. Therefore, I can’t help but feel that this (the answer to Wilhelm Reich’s question (lies in language. And I would propose a quasi-Lacanian (with a sprinkle of Zizek (possibility.
One thing that seems clear is that conservative to right ideologies have an overwhelming need for a given order –usually THEIR sense of order. And what we might look at is how we develop our language skills in the first place. We always start with static nouns: Mommy! Daddy! Even the first verbs we use are used as nouns: Eat! Lacan refers to these as Point de Captions or points of capture. And we should also note here that the French term refers to upholstery buttons. It’s not until we adapt to our environment a little more that we start making statements of becoming (as compared to the static being of nouns (such as “I want”.
So it makes perfect sense for an individual, as their wants grow more complex and more resisted by their environment, to desire to return to the days of simple static nouns, to act as if language, as a whole, is a static expression of being rather than the dynamic expression of becoming. And we can easily see this desire to make language static in the Conservative to Right’s over dependence on common doxa, platitudes and soundbites, and fixed meanings and assumptions. This is also why they reject the existential leap: their language games work much better for them and reality is just too messy. This is how, for instance, they can throw out words like “socialism” and act like everyone should automatically hear psycho-shrieks:
“YOU CAN’T DO THAT!!! That’s SOCIALISM!!!REEK!!!REEK!!!REEK!!!”
The irony of it is that these guys act like their position is some kind of sign of their maturity –that is when it is actually a sign of America’s adolescence. They throw out terms like “rugged individualism” (all tight fisted and shit (and put truck nuts on their 4 by 4’s (when all they seem to be doing is fighting their way back to the womb.
That said, I suppose this is a reaction to one of those conversations I had to listen to the other day. One of the points brought up was that old adage:
If you’re conservative when you’re young, you’re a square. And if you’re a liberal when you’re older, you’re a fool.
He then proceeded to explain that most people start to see past it in their 20’s. What I didn’t see was the statistical proof for this. It was only true because he either personally observed it or wanted to believe it. Of course, this is complete nonsense (and, quite frankly, a little operational in that it assumes any mature liberal position must automatically be assumed to be that of a fool (since I’m quite sure all the people keeping such shows as Bill Maher’s, Jon Stewart’s, or John Oliver’s alive are not all teens to early twenties. And I would assume, based on my friend’s assertion, that everyone in their 30’s is automatically watching Fox News.
It’s as if he heard the adage, liked what he heard, and built his whole reality around it.
I wonder if my friends will read what I’m writing now.