From the chapter on the Corcyran Civil War:
Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition was the cause of all these evils. To this must be added the violent fanaticism which came into play once the struggle had broken out. Leaders of parties in the cities had programs which appeared admirable - on one side political equality for the masses, on the other side the safe and sound government of the aristocracy - but in professing to serve the public interest they were seeking to win the prizes for themselves...
The nature of the Hellenic political institutions was of course radically different from our own. But both political cultures give an essential role to public discourse. Consequently, both our own and Classical societies face a threat from demagogues. Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly are merely the latest voices in a lineage going back through Morton Downey Jr., Father Charles Coughlin all the way to Cleon of Athens.
Any demagogue is an entrepreneur, seeking elite status within a particular subculture or identity community by espousing the defining values of that group. It's a form of display behavior somewhat more sophisticated than throwing dirt and sticks into the air, and one which requires the exploitation of identity cleavages.
We all identify with multiple communities, with the salience of all of our identities changing with the social context in which we find ourselves. To the extent a demagogue can make a particular common identity salient in their audience, they succeed. And the best way to make someone focus on a particular identity is to convince them there's a threat to the community on which that identity is based. The hyperpartisan atmosphere which results can result in the complete disintegration of a society; examples are the American Civil War, the Rwandan Genocide and the Yugoslav Civil War.
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There are three things about this, on which I would comment. The first is that why I agree with your observations and in fact, think they are profoundly true, it is remarkable to me how little "facts" have to do with the message of the demagogue. I do not remember the source, but one of the think tanks for studying the media (Peough Charitable Trust, maybe?) did a study to see what media outlet was the primary source of information for various individuals. Their conclusion was that people that listen to FOX most frequently had beliefs that were demonstrably incorrect. Who were the least likely to believe demonstrably untrue things? - listeners of NPR. (The inference being FOX News has more pundits than NPR.)
ReplyDeleteThe second thing (maybe a nuanced point) is that the level of natural reactionary-ism (I know not a real word or at least not spelled right) varies by individual like hair color, or skin tone. But, people who are more likely to be fearful, or feel threatened, or for whom a wider range of the "environmental dice" create a "hunker down" or lash out reaction, are more likely to be those who most easily identify with the pundits of whom you're writing. They are particularly vulnerable to the message that their life, way of life, social group, church or family is in dire threat.
The last thing that is interesting to me, and a place where we may differ - the pundits are not necessarily entirely cynical. Some believe, some are purely cynical, many are in the middle. But, as biological creatures, we have a higher predilection to collect resources to ourselves than almost any other bio-environmental programming. The differences in individuals' success rate depends on tactics. For those who have stumbled on to screaming "the sky is falling" as a way to collect money, women and cars (I was not thinking of Rush Limbaugh as I wrote this), each generation provides a new collection of people willing to pay them to scream it.
Ultimately, what we are talking about here has been called "the Authoritarian Personality" type. There was a great deal of research done on this after WWII, most notably by Theodor Adorno. His research has since been called into question, particularly over his failure to account for left-wing authoritarianism.
ReplyDeleteAt the heart of the Authoritarian Personality, at least in my view, (haven't read Adorno et. al.)is a need for certainty. This manifests itself as a type of fundamentalism. Authoritarian types learn a relatively simple set of core "principles", which then act as a schema. As you already know, that schema then serves to filter new information, with supporting information being incorporated into the schema and contradictory information being forgotten or altered so as to become consistent with the schema.
A terrific example of this is seen in "strict constructionists". These people claim to interpret the law in accordance with the "intent" of the Framers. But they ignore the fact that the Constitution was written as a political document. The Framers intentionally left sections of the of the document ambiguous, so as to make its ratification more likely. They intentionally left some issues undiscussed. When they couldn't fudge or ignore an issue, they inserted contradictory language in different sections of the document (see article 1 section 8, and compare to the 10th amendment. James Madison wrote both sections.) And finally, the Framers explicitly disavowed the doctrine of "Strict Constructionism".
But the belief that the Constitution provides an absolute unerring guide to any and all questions of public policy provides certainty and legitimates public policy preferences that can be sold as "Constitutional" to a subculture which is remarkably ignorant of the document they venerate.
There's a reason why so many teabaggers claim to be strict constructionists as well as fundamentalist Christians.