tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post2541707850996978860..comments2024-03-27T07:18:39.229-05:00Comments on In Medias Res: Would You Shoot (a Computer Image of a Zombie) Sarah Palin?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-18910373778339539602011-09-10T09:25:16.312-05:002011-09-10T09:25:16.312-05:00Thanks for the comment John! And yes, I did follow...Thanks for the comment John! And yes, I did follow the discussion about Hannah Arendt, though I didn't comment; I should have I suppose. I need to do more of that--what's the point of blogging if you're not responding to shared ideas, after all?Russell Arben Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03366800726360134194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-4894347096938906492011-09-10T07:15:01.266-05:002011-09-10T07:15:01.266-05:00Russell,
Thank you for this post. Some years bac...Russell,<br /><br />Thank you for this post. Some years back, I remember hearing/reading about shoot-em-up videogames passed around among white-supremacist websites and rallies, and feeling dismayed (though, just as you say, similar such materials appealing to the violent and/or brain-dead lowest common denominator have existed long before the Internet Age. This game that you mention is no less dismaying.<br /><br />You last couple of paragraphs resonated with me as well. I don't know if you've visited my place in the last couple of weeks, but we had a lively discussion over some ideas from Hannah Arendt's prologue in <i>The Human Condition</i> in which she muses how mechanization of work is resulting in "a society of laborers without labor," and then a later post on the apparent aspirations of at least some to be as interconnected as possible (via social media)--all of which leads Arendt (and me) to ask, "To what end? How is all of this making us better (in the "What is the Good?" sense of "better")? There's been no talk of how all this affects our politics; but thanks to you, it will now.John B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06358811061653958120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-36148530851266310002011-09-09T18:09:40.284-05:002011-09-09T18:09:40.284-05:00An Obama/Reid/Pelosi-killing game would fit the na...An Obama/Reid/Pelosi-killing game would fit the narrative of Republicans being hateful, violent, untrustworthy, and dangerous (and racist and sexist and, throw in Barney Frank, just to cover homophobic). It would be cast as an open call to violence against Democrats (or, by more reasonable commentators, reckless and dangerous, given the knowledge that there will always be some impressionable person out there who could be pushed over the edge). The Republican-killing game has gotten little mainstream coverage and what it has drawn has been less provocative than the game's creators had probably hoped. <br /><br />As for "double standards" on rhetoric, if I were claiming that Hoffa's inflammatory comments were more dangerous or irresponsible than Palin's were, we'd probably be equally trapped/hampered. I didn't say that. I said the comments were of a kind. I did say the Hoffa comments were more problematic than the <i>video game</i>, but because the former was a specific rallying cry and heightening--perhaps even exaggeration--of the real world stakes of a political struggle, while the latter was just an effort at black humor. There's no reason to believe that either Hoffa's comments or the video game were intended to--or are likely to unintentionally--result in harm to persons or property. But if it were to happen, it would more likely to flow from a person's belief that we really <i>are</i> at war with the Tea Party, that they really <i>are</i> trying to destroy the working man, and they really <i>must</i> be taken out--not because he believes that the Koch brothers are undead or has had his inhibitions weakened by acting out cartoonish violence.<br /><br />My point was that the video game (as simplistic and silly as it is) is, at most, a marginal expression of political discourse--like the urinal target you mentioned or a voodoo doll or a demeaning YouTube video. I think you're right in suggesting that these forms of expression are little more than a form of internal clique signaling. But the vast majority of political discourse from politicians and and their surrogates is exactly that. It's all about shoring up "the base" with red meat and making (more or less disingenuous) plays to move the middle. <br /><br />In that respect, there's <i>no</i> difference between Hoffa's comments and the video game. Hoffa wasn't doing Republican or independent outreach. He was preaching a sermon to the choir that was no more likely to sway outside opinions than a bumper sticker showing Calvin urinating on a GOP elephant.Scott--DFWnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-31697567857241521242011-09-09T15:21:00.110-05:002011-09-09T15:21:00.110-05:00Scott, why are you "pretty confident" th...Scott, why are you "pretty confident" that the public outrage would be greater (and has there really been a lot of outrage about this? I'd never even heard of it before the reporter called me yesterday afternoon) if the Zombies were Obama-clones or hippies or Nancy Pelosi? I'm not being facetious, I'm genuinely curious. I, and many others, went way overboard in attacking the Tea Party as a source of violence-inducing quasi-terrorists in the wake of the Giffords shooting...which was, of course, an actual shooting. Do you really think that if tomorrow, someone tried to assassinate Charles Koch or Eric Cantor, the media wouldn't make a big deal out of this? I can see why you would think that; the studies which show the liberal-leaning of the majority of MSM people are incontrovertible. But is that the extent of your explanation, or are you aware of studies which support your suspicion? <br /><br />I ask because I hear lots of claims about "double standards," and when I look into them, what I mostly see are people seeing what, of course, they're ideologically disposed to see, and that includes me as well. For instance, you say that when Hoffa is speaking to a bunch of (presumably angry, presumably rough?) union workers and activists, and says that they need to "take out" their opponents, you see a legitimate case for possible incitement to violence. I don't immediately see that...but yet I <i>did</i> think (admittedly, probably wrongly) that when Palin called on a bunch of (presumably gun-possessing, presumably alientated?) Tea Party activists to "take out" certain Democratic opponents, that <i>was</i> a legitimate case of possibly inciting people to violence. Am I just too completely in the tank to see what's obvious here, or are we both trapped, or at least hampered, by some basic human psychology? I'm prepared to be schooled on this point.Russell Arben Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03366800726360134194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-10739591680256792782011-09-09T14:32:43.905-05:002011-09-09T14:32:43.905-05:00I'm not troubled by the video game, because it...I'm not troubled by the video game, because it's clearly in the realm of black humor. I say that even though I'm pretty confident the press coverage and public outrage would be greater if there were donkeys, rather than elephants, in the crosshairs. <br /><br />Closer to the Palin rhetoric that you and many others objected to as incitement were the recent Hoffa remarks, which employed martial imagery and shouted encouragement to "take these son-of-a-bitches [sic] out." That kind of rhetoric is inflammatory and lies squarely in the real world political fray. Comments like that have much greater potential for incitement of an isolated, impressionable nut with a gun than a video game does.<br /><br />But, at the end of the day, intemperate rhetoric is part of politics. I wish it were condemned more even-handedly and less opportunistically, but it shouldn't be outlawed.Scott--DFWnoreply@blogger.com