Sunday, May 29, 2005

Orson Scott Card vs. Smartness
Or: The Last Refuge

Whew. Here's another real stinker from the sci-fi-writer-turned-conservative-hack. It's like a parody of right-wing paranoia and nationalism-disguised-as-patriotism. There's a good deal of my-country-right-or-wrong-type stuff, a suggestion that we should suppress news stories that undermine the War on Terra, and some whining about a recent expose on Mormonism.

My favorite part, though, is his David Brooksian attempt to invent some snappy terminology that distills the essence of The Current Unpleasantness. The fruit of his efforts? Well, you see, it's all about "Smartland" vs. the Heartland. The inhabitants of Smartland are those unpatriotic media and intellectual elites who don't realize that they should STFU, support the president, salute the flag, and go to church. The inhabitants of Smartland don't realize how lucky they are to live over here, in a country where the religious right merely dreams about killin' 'em and drops hints about how they probably deserve killin', instead of over in the Middle East where it would just kill 'em...

Oh, gosh, that last bit's a little unfair to Card. He doesn't really drop any hints about killing us. That's Coulter...

But the rest is more-or-less accurate. Christ, how do people like this find an audience? Are there really that many people out there so deluded and possessed of such modest intellectual abilities that they think that this crap is insightful? Perhaps it's all about having one's predjudices reinforced...

The thing about these my-country-right-or-wrong types is that they see even the truth as a threat. They're so comitted to the claim that this is the best of all possible nations that they are willing to distort the facts in order to support the fantasy.

And, um, just for the record, let me make it clear that I think this is a damn fine country. In fact, I think I think it's a better country than I think they think it is, because I think it's good enough that it can withstand having the truth told about it. In fact, I think it'd be an even better country if rather more truths were told about it....

What we have here are two visions of how we should conduct our efforts against terrorism. Card thinks that critics of the administration should shut up, and we should all fall in line behind Dear Leader. When America does something wrong, the information should be covered up. Our opponents, he claims, are unified, and this gives them an advantage over us. We should respond by becoming more Borg-like ourselves.

I, on the other hand, think that we should appear virtuous by being virtuous, not by lying about our virtue. If we do something wrong, we should admit it and promise not to do it again. I think dissent is good, especially when there are criminals and idiots running the country. I think America will win this struggle only by being America, in all it's cacophanous glory.

But, then, I guess I'm one of the insidious denizens of "Smartland"...

One thing Orson Scott Card gets right, I think: Osama bin Laden et. al. are considerably worse than Orson Scott Card et. al. I'm fairly certain that OBL would kill people like me if he ruled the world. I'm fairly certain that people like OSC (Pat Robertson, James Dobson) would merely make our lives miserable. The nugget of truth Card's screed is that many on the left underestimate the badness of the Islamic religious right. That's a point worth keeping in mind, thin and obvious though it might be.

After reading this dreck, though, one can only hope that Card will go back to writing sci-fi and leave off the fantasy.

[O.k., that's it. I'm done picking on the worst of the worst. From now on, I'm going to focus on non-crap. But after my customary four hours of sleep, I was cranky and this really annoyed me.]

[Oh, and, to my shame, I found this on Fark.com, where it was--I'm not making this up--labeled "Hero".]

15 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am still curious as to who the "many on the left" are who underestimate the badness of the Islamic religious right. First, there's about 1.2 billion muslims out there, and as far as I can tell, the vast, vast majority of them aren't even remotely part of the religious right. Just like vast majority of Christians, they are, for the most part, just normal people who are far more concerned with their own life than some radical agenda. Second, there are distinctions as to what the mythical left and the mythical right believe are the root causes of the rise radical right wing Islam.

The mythical left believes that this is largely due to oppressive authoritarian regimes that we (the US) have been supporting. The mythical left also believes that our unquestioning support for Israel and selling short of the Palestinians have more than a little to do with this (if nothing else, the Palestinian cause is a rallying point the oppressive regimes use to deflect the attention of their people away from their own repressive regimes).

The mythical right, on the other hand, believes that the root causes of the rise of radical right wing Islam is because they hate our freedom. The mythical right believes that if we merely convert them to a capitalist free market, then the invisible hand will take over and their inner yearning for freedom will take over and the democracy dominoes will tumble and the flower of liberal democracies will spread throughout the Middle East.

The characterization of the mythical left is that because they believe that we have had a heavy hand in creating and supporting these authoritarian regimes, they hate America. The characterization is that because they don't believe that democracy is an easy thing to bring about, they do not believe in freedom. The characterization is that because they believe the war in Iraq is a huge distraction from the battle against terrorism, they want Saddam to still be in power.

Myself, I think the right is hopelessly naïve. They have a model which is based on the cold war and believe that if we merely liberate the countries from their cruel masters and give them a market economy, everything will magically work (the invisible hand theory). The problem with this is, in the cold war and Eastern Europe, the cruel master was our diametrically opposed enemy, Russia. So when we liberated them, we were the liberators. In the Middle East, we undeniably are both the creators and certainly the enablers of these brutal authoritarian regimes. Before 1991, we were in bed with Saddam because he was useful in his war against Iran. Before the Ayatollahs in Iran, we had set up the Shah who brutally ruled the country. Our dependency on Saudi oil keeps the house of Saud in power there and the flow of our cash is funding the very radical brand of Islam we're now threatened by.

I'm sure there are those who discount the threat of the militant Islamic right wing. But I know there are far, far more that over emphasize the threat. I don't think we're in any danger of those who underestimate the threat taking over and driving our national strategy, tactics and policy against this threat. Really, now. There's simply no chance of that happening what so ever. Rather, the problem is that we have a vast majority who sees the entire population of Muslims as a threat; they are making serious noises of rounding them all up. Heck, they are pushing for a holy crusade against these 1.2 billion. And then there's the dangerously naïve faction who thinks that it's all so simply solved if we can just severe the heads of these regimes - it'll all work out by magic.

Again, what's the threat here? A small population of ineffective voices from the "peace only", scrotal sack inflation faction taking over? Or the current majority of fear mongers whipping the rest of us up to take actions we're sure to regret later (like, say, invading a country with only a fantasy plan for the occupation and certainly no where near the number of troops required to actually carry out a real plan)?

Somehow I don't think it's the peace-nicks that we should be even remotely worried about.

But that's just me.

10:39 AM  
Blogger Devotee said...

I think that the real enemy is the tendency to create these mythical lefts and mythical rights. War happens only because some population of people is deluded into thinking that other normal people on the other side of an arbitrary line are so politically, philosophically, or religiously wrong that they merit killing. Then, when that population is mobilized to kill, the people on the other side of that line must fail to talk the enraged population down. Sometimes, that failure is a no-fault failure, sometimes it is a failure to even try. But regardless, war is not possible without (a) agitation and (b) the failure of diplomacy.

It's worth noting that the agitation part almost always starts small.

And on another note -- am I going crazy here, or did Orson Scott Card basically admit that, on the subject of R-rated movies, he sides with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden?

2:42 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Did Mr. Scott-Card just call Bush voters Dumb? Or is there some other way of understanding "smartland"?

3:10 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

At the core of Card's argument is this, which I think is difficult to diagree with:

Our country is at war. And it's a war in which victory absolutely depends on the Muslim world perceiving it as a war between the U.S and its allies on one side, and fanatical murderous terrorists on the other.

If it is ever perceived as a war against Islam, then we have lost. The world has lost.



Whether one's first allegiance is to the United States or to world peace in general, I find it difficult to reconcile the Newsweek report with the intent or even possibility of furthering the interests of either.

5:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Card (and presumably tvd) claim that Newsweek knew this would provoke outrage. This is a hard claim to back up given that the same claims have been reported since at least 2003. It's even harder given that the former prisoners were released and reporting it themselves. So the premise seems completely and verifiable false on its face. Perhaps demonstrations like this by our own soldiers do far more for the perception that this is a war against Islam. Or perhaps the racial profiling and calls for mass internment of Muslims (by Michael Malkin, for example, or the rounding up of 6,000 Muslim immigrants immediately following 9/11) provide the fuel for this fire.

It's clear that a democracy demands accurate information as to what's happening so that the people can make accurate decisions. As to "who benefits from the story" such as the Koran desecration, it's obviously us - the very people at war. What's particularly silly about this world view is the long discredited belief that simply ignoring what everyone else already knows (remember the Koran desecration story had already been published numerous times, not to mention the AI and Red Cross/Crescent investigations and reports).

Democracy is always hard under wartime and there is a balance to strike. But it's quite laughable to believe that the press is way over the line - especially in the case of Newsweek. And the reactions of people like Card (and presumably tvd) are nothing more than the expression of the belief that if we suppress and ignore the information, nothing will happen. The presumption that there isn't anything going on we need to know about and anything we do report is merely the magnification of trivial, non important actions.

Card has pretty much revealed his fascist stripes. He wants absolute loyalty to the president in a "war" which everyone universally admits will last for decades. So, what Card (and tvd) are suggesting is that we give up this quaint idea of democracy and self governance and submit to a benevolent dictatorship for our own good.

Sorry. Ain't going to happen. Not without a huge fight. This is a totalitarian movement on the right (by definition).

History is replete with examples of states making precisely the same argument as Card (and tvd). They have always been wrong. I can't remember there ever being a circumstance where having accurate information as to what your government is doing has caused the problems that Card (and tvd) are claiming. In fact, history shows precisely the opposite. It's when people are denied frank and accurate information about what is happening that mistakes are made - horrible mistakes.

10:19 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

To the best of my knowledge, tvd has never said any of that stuff, and it is inconsistent with other things he's said--so I think lumping him in with Card here is extremely unfair.

About Card, however, I agree with you. The kind of crap he writes in that piece IS the kind of crap that softens people up for fascists.

I agree w/ tvd, though, that Card is right about one important point: if this gets percieved as a war against Islam, we're screwed. That might entail that Newsweek had an obligation to be surer about it's sources...but also that their original source in the military had an obligation to be more careful.

As for the "mythical" lefts and rights discussed by anonymous #1--they aren't mythical. I've talked to folks from both sides, and had long arguments with people from the purportedly "mythical" left. And they aren't just from the scrotal-sack inflation crowd.

But I DO DO DO agree that the odds of the too-soft-on-terrorism crowd coming into power are basically non-existent, while the irresponsibly-free-with-the-bombs crowd is ALREADY in power.

5:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Two things. First, the argument "against Newsweek" presented a few comments above is a slippery slope to pretty much what we have these days as our "mainstream media," a propaganda machine. Second, viz. Winston's initial thought that an Osama world would be more likely to kill "us" than one ruled by Dobson, Robertson, and co. I think that's fairly naive given various statements by Limbaugh and Colter. Moreover, I think it's pretty reasonable (and frightening) to see the parallels between '30s Germany and the United States today. Those nice, highly educated folks, the cream of intellectual Europe, collaborated in the Holocaust and in the utter destruction of Europe. We are naive if we imagine that somehow Americans are just different, just kinder, just nicer folks. WE used to lynch people, and we still go out and stomp drag queens to death in Yuma. The dark side of American history is just repressed for the most part, and the powers that be are becoming more and more adept at keeping most of us staring at that back wall of the cave, where they play NFL and NASCAR and American Idol.

11:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Um, can anyone tell me who we're at war with? I mean, we overthrew the Taliban and we have an elected government there. We overthrew Saddam and we have an elected government there.

So, can we stop this "we're at war so we all have to give up our rights" talk? Perpetual war and democracy don't mix. The latter always withers and dies under the former. Saying we're in a war against terror is as meaningless as a war against drugs or a war on poverty.

And, yea, it would really suck if we were perceived as being in a war against Islam, but I hate to break it to y'all, that perception is already there and it wasn't put there by the anti-war types or the liberal media.

Actions speak louder than words.

3:31 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Silly Anonymous, we're at war with Oceania.

Or is it Eurasia?

6:40 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey great blog, I totally agree with some of your comments. I just put up a new site on china travel

5:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great college football news blog you have here. I'm always looking for info on college football news. You can check out my forum about college football news if you have a chance.

3:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Imagine the power of tens of thousands of other web sites being able to easily

3:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, you have a great blog here! I'm definitely going to bookmark you!

I have a flower garden site/blog. It pretty much covers ##KEYWORD## related stuff.

Come and check it out when you have the time :-)

7:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello! What at great blog you have going. I blog about internet marketing solution. I am also offering the eBook "Adsense Empire" to my visitors.... Stop by & get your copy today

3:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web
nice web

2:01 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home