The rhetoric of the establishment has taken on a now totally predictable, echo-chamber-like unanimity. So has that of the left, and more so. This, of course, would not strike most of us as a bad thing; solidarity is never more evident than in agreement, especially when that agreement is not constructed by the forces of imperialism. However, there is a critical argument to be made that in our rush to a clear, morally confident and active stance of unity, we are establishing - or rather, reinforcing - a very destructive habit of argument - the near exclusive reliance on comparative counter-villification. Argument-wise, this method is both incomplete and unsound. Tactically, it is likely to be as effective in its goal of creating a sense of proportion among working class Americans as the tactic of direct combat with the state is effective in crushing it.
The reports, analyses and arguments made by the establishment are partial, out of context, and totally misleading. The left's arguments do not escape these sins, but commit them on a far smaller scale. Too often, we imply self-evident knowledge of a moral truth when in fact deep, contentious ethical arguments exist - about what "murder" is, for example. Some of us are even willing to dismiss the act of ethical argument itself as a bourgeoius excersize, implicitly if not explicitly. But I think that these are minor problems with our approach to argument.
The biggest problem is that of competing moral condemnation. What inspired me to write this was a satire on Zmag.org of a speech Bush could give to save the world, right now, if one of us took control of his brain (the scenario wasn't as elaborate, but my elaboration does not injure the orignal spirit of the satire). Over and over again, the focus was on comparison, on scope, with over-simplistic shoe-on-the-other-foot excersizes, and above all, the desire for a massive admission of guilt, guilt, and more guilt. One almost thinks that if the U.S. were to suddently offer to change its whole political and economic system so that it would emulate Cuba, but not admit how wrong it was in the past, the writer would reject the offer.
This article is not that extreme an example of this trend in radical writing and speech. Few of the arguments are pragmatic, let alone what they need to be, and that is whole-systemic-analytic. They are overwhelmingly moral arguments, using the same object-isolating, instrumentalist logic that the right uses. The only lasting effect of all of them, whether intended or not, is to convey that "X is good, Y is bad." And just like the right, when the "good" party does something that human beings naturally find morally repgunant, we step back, and stoically label it a logical systemic reaction. When the "bad" does something repugnant, we act as if they are metaphysically autonomous, holding perfect empirical knowledge and normative wisdom, and apply stern, object-isolational condemnation. This is a flawed and I think fundementally disingenuous form of argument. Just because the right does the exact same thing only on much deeper and volumionous scale does not make it right for us to do it.
And it certainly doesn't give us a tactical chance in this new emotionally charged, flag-waving environment. Arguments that address moral repugnancy, by their very nature, affect us in a primarily emotional way. Therefore, while we win on points in terms of scale of villainy of the other side, we get crushed by the geographic and media-encouraged displacement and skewed focus. Most people, when confronted with both arguments, will retreat to the easier, more "secure" answer, acknowledging breifly that both sides are "evil in their own way" but forgetting that acknowledgement 30 minutes of CNN later.
We need to be more holistic about both our analysis and our emotionally-felt morals. Instead of saying "x is an outrage, but y is a bigger outrage, [so x is cancelled out]" we have to say "x is part of the outrage, y is part of the outrage, and the world system IS the outrage."
This involves certain sacrifices from what has been the left's overriding approach in activism. We cannot think of a goal to liberate women, or liberate workers, or liberate the 3rd world, or even liberate the oppressed, as an isolated thing. Our goal is to change the world. We feel sympathy for the oppressed, and it may be (and usually is, for hardcore activists) this sympathy that leads us to want to understand change the system, but we must always make it clear that it is the SYSTEM that is oppressing people, that PEOPLE like George W Bush (especially) do not make perfectly autonomous decisions, but are part of a system, that personalistically villifying a leader or a state or even a corporation is innaccurate, unfair, inflammatory both for and - mostly - against the cause, and ineffective against the same tactic from a side that has a far greater capacity to use it more effectively.
Systemic arguments are not naturally easy to make to people, especially in the west. Detachment and patience with regard to emotions and morality is very difficult for all of us, and all those we wish to join us. But the systemic analysis approach has a profound advantage. It bypasses the head-on battle of arguments that we have never won and will lose horribly in the next few months. The systemic approach cannot be competed with by the media in any way that they can use in sound-bite culture, and even in longer forms, they will be forced to adopt systemic world views, or to combat the idea of there being systemic issues at all - something I don't believe will wash.
I am quite new to activism, though not to political observation, but I am guessing that for some of you, I have revived fully-explored and happily buried debates. But I fear that at the moment, this movement is at risk of counter-villifying its way into irrelevency. Then, all that will be left will be a world of villains - or rather, a totally villanous world.
Noam A