Originally Posted by Tiassa
In the conservative case, I would point to neocons and evangelicals. To start with the latter, it is enough to point out that evangelicals often express a very superficial comprehension of their faith that leads to a dualistic paradigm in which the armies of God are constantly at war with the legions of darkness. With the neoconservatives, though, it is the philosophical work of Leo Strauss, who actually advocates the value of identifying a society according to myth in order to create cohesion by raising devils, thus feeding a dualistic paradigm in which the good guys (i.e., American society) are constantly at war with the bad guys (i.e., communists, Muslims, labor unions, &c.). It gets so ridiculous sometimes that the party of Clint Eastwood (actor, mayor), Sonny Bono (musician, actor, congressman), and Ronald Reagan (actor, governor, president) will complain about the Hollywood elite any time a celebrity expresses a political opinion they don't like.
It's always dualistic at the core.
I've always considered such thinking endemic to Anglo cultures, and even moreso to American culture--right from the outset. It's manifested in myriad ways, but in particular, that philistinism is worn like a badge of honor in much of the U.S. pretty much ensures the continued promulgation of overly simplistic binary oppositions in all arenas.
I may get blasted for saying that, but seriously: "we will never have smart people on our side"?! Moreover, Hollywood, mainstream news media (print and tv), popular music, that young people are actually
discouraged from pursuing Fine Arts and Liberal Arts (they're not lucrative "professions"), etc. all lend support to my contention that the U.S. is
largely a nation of philistines who harbor fear and disdain towards ambiguity.
Unfortunately, I think this creates obstacles for both Democrats and (most especially) for the
real Left: on some levels, one has to embrace a sort of crude dualistic worldview in order to effectively communicate with the largest number of people--both within and outside of one's base, as while such worldviews are most extreme and pronounced amongst conservatives; they are, nevertheless, pervasive throughout
all of America. However, doing so smacks of dishonesty.
To give a concrete example: When I was in India years ago, I was quite surprised to discover that Indians practice, live, and acknowledge quite a range of both sexual orientations as well as gender identities. And this is hardly a recent phenomenon, apparently it dates back milleniea. (There's certainly a level of intolerance as well; regardless,
it's there, and it's been there.) I've seen this in other parts of Asia, Europe, Central America, etc. to a lesser degree, but still far greater than in the U.S.
And yet, Americans are only
finally starting to accept homosexuality--but what about bisexuality? Or transgender persons? I know a fair number of transgender people; I don't know a
one who is accepted into the mainstream, by which I mean: they've all got weird jobs (definitely not in a "company" that employs large numbers of people), they hang out mostly with "outsiders," counterculture types, etc. Sure, oftimes this is largely by choice. But my point is: I personally don't believe that they really could do otherwise even if they wanted to.
Another example would be America's relationship with the Wild--but I'll focus on, what Paul Shepard would describe as transitional, the relationship with dogs. By and large, there exist two types of relationships with dogs in American culture: those who consider dogs as "things" or "property"--that's just fucked-up and evil and I'm not gonna say anything else on it as I'm apt to become belligerent; then there are those who act as though their dogs are their
children--that's just creepy and weird. I've always regarded my dogs simply as fellow comrades and kommune members. I acknowledge their dependency in certain ways, but I also acknowledge their superior powers of discernment and their gift for conflict resolution, even as I
don't fully understand it. And that last bit is what I find Americans largely to be most uncomfortable with--not
fully understanding something--and so they address such with suppression, repression, and by embracing overly simplified taxonomies.
In short, I think America is a schizophrenic culture
par excellence, in a Batesonian/Laingian sense. (Gyyaawwd, and I'm totally
dreading the Hollywood remake of Pascal Laufier's masterpiece,
Martyrs, as I know it'll be all clean and totally coherent-like.)
Seriously, every high school student should have to spend at least one semester studying Marcuse's
One-Dimensional Man in order to address this tendency people have to make
everyone else neurotic. (Then they can move on to Marighella's "Minimanual of the Urban Guerilla," lol.)
Democrats, as much as I disagree with them, at least make an effort to be inclusive, to entertain possibilities, and to acknowledge the complexities of life. To do otherwise would be shitty and dishonest. But in so doing they sometimes alienate persons within their base as well as potential converts who prefer simple answers and certitude. Of course, this is hardly a criticism, just a statement of how I perceive things.
At the same time, Democrats sometimes acquiesce to the demands of the public for the simple binaric oppositions. For instance, they don't acknowledge that Obamacare is in fact "socialistic" in that public utility
for all is the desired end, rather than monetary gain
for a few (and this end could even be more effectively attained with a single-payer system that is even
more "socialistic"). Or, rather than simply declaring "terrorists" as an irrational "evil" to be extinguished, they could make the effort to understand the motivations and circumstances which bring arise to such.
That is a criticism, even though--as I noted above--I recognize it as sometimes a necessity.
Ehhh, I seriously apologize for rambling, and perhaps not being entirely coherent, but you touched upon something that is especially troubling to me. I suspect that morphic resonance doesn't work across fiber optics, but I hope that something I said made at least a little bit of sense nonetheless.
