Idiot America

I have to thank P.Z. Meyers at Pharyngula for tipping me off about this brilliant, savage and depressing analysis of American society in the early years of the 21st century by Charles P. Pierce.  It's worth reading, rereading, and framing.  Read the whole thing . . . but here's the nut of it:

It is a long way from Jefferson's observatory and Franklin's kite to George W. Bush, in an interview in 2005, suggesting that intelligent design be taught alongside the theory of evolution in the nation's science classes. "Both sides ought to be properly taught," said the president, "so people can understand what the debate is about."

The "debate," of course, is nothing of the sort, because two sides are required for a debate. Nevertheless, the very notion of it is a measure of how scientific discourse and the way the country educates itself, has slipped through lassitude and inattention across the border into Idiot America—where fact is merely that which enough people believe, and truth is measured only by how fervently they believe it.

The academics of the left created the philosophical foundation for Idiot America.  Post-modern lit-crit holds that the written word is just a text that is susceptible of multiple but equally valid interpretations.  The post-modern history of science holds that science itself does not reveal truth, but is simply a hegemonic gender-biased western-world means of discourse.  Intellectual toys like this are just fun and games until someone loses an eye--and that's what's happening now to science, to politics, to religion, to education, to the news media, and to the culture in general.  People trying to see their way to truth, knowledge and progress have had one eye poked out by a deconstructionist stick. 

Here's a personal, recent example.  I was talking with a new Writing Center colleague of mine last week.  I characterized some student writing I have seen as "bad."  My interlocutor was much miffed.  At the institution where she was trained, she told me, she was taught that there is no such thing as bad writing, and that the primary goal of writing mentors was to help students write in their authentic voice. 

That's Idiot America for you.  The rules of grammar, the meaning of words, and the principles of style are just textual constructs in a universe where all other constructs are equally valid.  Inauthenticity is the only cardinal sin.  We don't need no stinkin' Strunk & White.

I take some comfort from my observation that the community college students I teach are generally more rooted in common sense--if not reality--than some of their teachers.  I've never yet had a student ask how he can make his voice more authentic; most of them are desperate to know if their sentences are grammatical, if their organization is logical, if their word choice is sound, if their punctuation is accurate.  They know there are things like right and wrong, truth and untruth, reason and unreason, even if some of their teachers don't.  They know that the rules of good writing can't be voted off the island.

Those liberals who esteem tolerance as the preeminent virtue have done their part to prepare the soil in which Idiot America has grown.  They tolerate bad writing, bad science, bad history, bad argument: hey, everyone's entitled to a point of view, right?  As I've noted before in a discussion of Chris Hedges' new book, there's a paradox at work here: tolerating the intolerant leads to the destruction of tolerance.  The problem is that tolerance is so damn comfortable.  It's like a warm sweater and a well-worn pair of jeans.  Who wants to change into a stiff, scratchy uniform and go fight for objective truth?  Thus we are conditioned to ignore the strident voices that call for theocracy (Muslim or Christian) and the smooth anchorman voices that report on fictitious controversies over evolution, public health, and pollution.

Phil Ochs captured this kind of comfortable complacency in his acidly sarcastic song, Outside of a Small Circle of Friends:

Oh look outside the window, there's a woman being grabbed
They've dragged her to the bushes and now she's being stabbed
Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain
But Monopoly is so much fun, I'd hate to blow the game
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends.

Liberals are standing around tut-tutting while history, science, religion and enlightenment are being mugged--and then they wonder why they are outnumbered and outgunned when yahoos want to teach their kids creationism, when kooks deny the adverse effects of pollution, and when chickenhawks send our troops into Baghdad with the assurance that they will be greeted with flowers and chocolate.  They pine for intelligent discourse, and Idiot America only laughs in their faces.

Comments

[Robert Gehl]

It's one thing to argue about rules in, for example, grammar. In that case, your admonition of your new WC colleague is spot on. She's arguing that the rules of "Grammar A" don't really matter; instead students should seek their personal, individualized (and I would argue consumeristic) "Grammar B" (I think those were the terms they used when I was getting my undergraduate degree). Clearly, she is wrong; we need grammatical rules in order to set a standard of communication. We also need rules of scientific conduct, rules for research, etc.

However, I think that the pomo (postmodern) critique (at least, the REAL pomo critique - not just the cartoon variety) is directed towards the proper object: the rules themselves. Who wrote them? Why? How? and for whose benefit? If it weren't for pomo/Latourian critiques of science, we might be in the midsts of Eugenics, or some other dubious scientific agenda - ideologically driven, spurious, and dangerous.

I think we can maintain a project of critiquing the constitution of rules - rules of scientific conduct, academic standards, etc - while accepting the need for standards of conduct. Rules are made by people. They can be set to exclude some to benefit others. However, they can be changed by people.

What we cannot argue are scientific facts arising from material reality. The difference is that these are not created by people, they are perceived by people, and as such are inalterable (and, as some might argue, they are basically intangible).

In other words, you can argue about the proper way to measure the theoretical concept of "gravity." Those are the rules, which create a measurable standard, which can in fact be changed (think of the shift from Newtonian physics to modern day quantum physics). Those rules arise from particular political and social concepts and biases. What you cannot argue is that gravity as a phenomenon does not exist.

The problem arises when we conflate the rules of measurement, conduct, etc, with the phenomenon.

Ok. That was my one of my least coherent responses to your posts. I guess I'm trying to find my "authentic voice."

[James F. Trumm]

It was a rainy night in the naked city and I was down in my basement doing two of the things I do best: typing and pissing people off. I like being a blogger. Maybe not as much as I like a stacked blonde in a diaphanous peignoir running her fingers through my hair, but it sure beats having the back of your head beat with a tire iron. I was very conscious of this preference when I heard my back door open and two pairs of Doc Martin's clumping down the stairs. I reached for the sap I keep in my desk drawer and waited.

"Gentlemen," I nodded as the two goombahs walked through the door. One of them was a tall drink of water with a shock of hair the color of three-day snow and a dark sportcoat over a darker tie. The other one was shorter, bald as a cue-ball, and wore glasses and a white turtleneck.

"We're looking for Trumm," said Sportcoat, sounding like a guy at a lobster tank picking out this evening's entree and crushing a Gauloise into the carpet.

"Yeah?" I said. "I'm looking for love in all the wrong places. Guess we got something in common."

"Hear that, Jacques?" said Cueball. "Bright boy thinks he's a funny man. Maybe you should try getting a laugh out of my little friend here." He reached meaningfully into his coat pocket. I tightened my grip on the sap handle.

"Clam up, Michel," Sportcoat snarled. "Let me do the talking."

"Yeah," I said, apropos of not much except the growing feeling that I was going to need either a fifth of whiskey or a good lawyer before the night was over. On the whole, I'd prefer the whiskey: less of a hangover that way.

"So, Smart Boy," said Sportcoat, to the chase having cut, "nice blog you got there." He sneered at my 'puter. "Shame if something was to . . . happen to it."

"You need discipline," said Cueball, ignoring Sportcoat's glare. "And punishment." These two guys were both talking now, but it didn't seem like they were communicating with each other. At least that's how I interpreted it.

"Is that so?" I bluffed. "On account of why?"

"See," purred Sportcoat, "I know a guy who knows a guy who was kinda put out by some stuff you said recently. I thought you might want to . . . edit yourself a bit, you know, so this guy doesn't get too unhappy."

"Which guy? The first guy or the second guy?" I asked, keeping my tone light.

Sportcoat stopped smirking at this. "You put the finger on some friends of mine," he said, all business now. "You told Roscoe and Omar that my friends and me were responsible for lousing up the enlightenment, Smart Boy."

"So what if I did? And who are Roscoe and Omar?" I asked, genuinely baffled.

"Textual constructs. Friends of mine. What does it matter?" growled Cueball. "Let's whack him and get it over with, Jacques."

The one called Jacques seemed to take a moment to think about this before moving his hand across his chest to the inside pocket of his sportcoat. I saw my chance. As soon as his hand went in, my feet hit the floor. I jumped up, feigned a left jab at Jacques and then gave him a nice love tap with the sap on the left temple. Down he went like a ten-dollar whore. Michel already had his gun out, but I was too fast for him. Bent over at the waist, I charged into him, getting my back under his gun hand and then ramming three stiff fingers into his adam's apple. He dropped the piece, clutched at his neck and began to make gurgling, gasping noises.

I picked up the gun and pointed it at him. "Our little interview is over," I said. "You pick up bright boy there before he bleeds all over my carpet and get out." I flicked the safety off, meaningfully. "Interpret this anyway you like, but if I see either of your ugly French mugs in here again, you'll wind up with more holes than a four-story whorehouse. Move."

After they were gone, I studied the burn on the carpet. Maybe it added ambiance. I opened my bottom drawer and pulled out a bottle of Old Bushmills. They'd be back, I mused, them or guys just like them. You try to pin a rap like murdering the enlightenment on guys like that and eventually you wind up real dead.