On HU
Things were a bit livelier this week, which was good to see.
Featured Archive Post: Adrielle Mitchell on comics creators talking about their own projects.
mouse on Disney’s horny Zootopia.
Sarah Shoker on Antonin Scalia and the politics of grief.
Jennifer Heibit on The Handmaid’s Tale, Watchmen, and the differeing evils of dystopia.
I fix everything wrong with the Supreme Court.
Utilitarians Everywhere
At the Guardian I wrote about:
—Ghostbusters, sex, and gender swapping.
—the Matrix’s crappy gender politics, MRAs, and the Wachowski sisters.
At Quartz I wrote about Shira Tarrant’s new book The Pornography Industry and why we need more porn.
At the Week I explained why we should get rid of early voting.
At Random Nerds I interviewed André Carrington about his new book on race and science fiction.
At Pacific Standard I wrote about Rebecca Traister’s All the Single Ladies and how single women will change the world.
At the LA Times I rounded up all the theories about who is to blame for Donald Trump.
At Splice Today I argued that the Democratic candidates should endorse Kim Foxx for Cook County prosecutor.
Other Links
The Chicago Reader on Kim Foxx’s vision for changing the Cook County prosecutor’s office.
Nicole Brinkley on the YA novel Inexcusable and rape.
Parker Molloy on the Wachowskis coming out as trans and the disappointment of redpill MRAs.
The Chicago Reader link goes straight to your Ghostbusters article.
I early-voted just yesterday.
Of the many dumb things about the US electoral system, one of the dumbest is that you hold elections on weekdays. In Australia, elections are always held on a Saturday, so most people don’t have to skip work to stand in long queues at voting booths. But voting is compulsory here, which de facto forces elections to be held on the weekend anyway (since it otherwise would be too onerous for too many people).
There’s actually little evidence that weekday voting lowers turnout. It’s like early voting; it sounds like it should matter, but it doesn’t seem to (automatic registration is the one thing that does.)
I didn’t know voting was compulsory in Australia. Does that work well? Are people fined if they don’t vote?
“There’s actually little evidence that weekday voting lowers turnout.”
I dunno quite how to read this — do you mean there’s evidence that it has little effect, or have people just not studied it? I do find it hard to believe that it doesn’t somewhat suppress the vote from people with poor job security (i.e. Democrat voters).
Anyway, yeah, compulsory voting in Australia. I think it makes voting seem like just part of your civic duty. You pay taxes, you do jury duty when called on, you vote every year or two. It’s that often because voting is compulsory at all three levels of government (local council, state, and federal), and of course those elections are held separately, and not all the levels of government have fixed terms, so elections can be called earlier or later, depending on the whim of the relevant government. Right now there’s much speculation about whether the current PM will call an early federal election, which most analysts think he will (due to considerations about Senate reform which are too arcane to be worth explaining).
And, yes, people are fined if they don’t vote — which is to say, they’re fined if they don’t get their name checked off at a polling place on the day (which is not quite the same as necessarily voting.). The fine isn’t that big, and it’s not too hard to get excused from it for some reason or other (e.g. you were out of state).
Does it work well? Let me put it this way. Every few years our right-wing party (confusingly called the “Liberal” Party) floats the idea that voting should be voluntary, because why should we be forced to blah blah blah. Which tells you everything you need to know about who would benefit from voluntary voting.
There’s a principled argument for it — it’s part of civic duty — which I think is fairly weak. There’s a partisan argument (not generally openly acknowledged, at least not by the relevant partisans) — that voluntary voting would mean less votes from marginalised groups, which would in turn favour the Liberal Party. Frankly that’s why I’m all for compulsory voting, and wish the US had it, too. But there’s also a more general argument that it’s valuable for its indirect consequences. When voting is compulsory — when you’re going to get fined if you don’t vote — then there’s a very strong imperative on the various Electoral Commissions to make voting convenient, easy and quick. Which it should be. US elections, at least at the federal level, are a disgrace.
Noah, just a typo correction: You mention toward the end “Nicole Brinkley on the YA novel Interrobang and rape”. The book, it turns out, is really titled Inexcusable.
YA Interrobang is the name of the website where Brinkley posted an editorial explaining why the site will not cover Inexcusable (basically because the narrative defends an unrepentant date rapist).
The best paper on compulsory voting in Australia finds that, when it was adopted, it led to major gains for the Labor party and pension spending. (Full disclosure: it is by a collegue of mine.) Read more here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21176039/Fowler_CompulsoryVoting.pdf
On weekend voting, it has been studied, and no credible paper finds any effect.
Argh; right you are on the Interrobang article; it’s fixed.
Thanks for the info Scott; compulsory voting seems like it would be a good idea. I don’t think it’s even on the political radar here….
Yeah, there’s no chance the US will adopt compulsory voting anytime soon. Anthony has another paper that throws some cold water on the hope that other strategies to stimulate turnout will do an adequate job of making the electorate look like the citizens. Specifically, the GOTV strategies that work best in well controlled experiments differentially work in such a way that turnout inequality _increases_.
Scott, my understanding is that automatic registration works pretty well…not sure anything else does. Compulsory voting would be even better though.
In the meantime, fully enfranchising Washington DC would be nice.
Noah, we’ll know more about automatic registration once we have some experience of states adopting it, but I’m skeptical it will reduce turnout inequality. This comes from collecting several lines of evidence.
First, the historical evidence on reforms like Motor Voter is that those reforms had no effect. Second, a good experimental paper by David Nickerson, motivated precisely by automatic voting reforms, tried an expensive canvassing campaign to encourage registration. He found that the effect on registration was largest in low SES neighborhoods, but that turnout among newly registered in high SES neighborhoods was much higher, so on net there was no change in turnout inequality.
This offsetting adjustment in turnout is something we see in other areas as well. For example, Ebonya Washington found that African-American candidates often hurt other Democrats on the ballot, for a similar reason.
Not to say automatic registration is not a good idea for other reasons, of course. But the best action to fight turnout inequality might well be electing a President whose judicial nominees will refuse to go along with voter ID laws.
Compulsory voting is a good idea because… what, it benefits supposedly left-wing parties? How about they offer working class voters good reasons to vote for them instead?
I get so bored being told that its people like me who let the tories into power (in the uk, btw) because I generally don’t vote.
In Australia they have to force you to vote because a hereditary head of state who lives on the other side of the world has the power to sack the government if she doesn’t like the result makes elections obviously ridiculous.
The least they could do is give you a paid public holiday though (the Saturday thing is a bit shit)
Compulsory voting is good because it fosters civic spirit and helps ensure that everyone has a voice in government.
People don’t vote for lots of reasons. One reason is that they feel that their vote doesn’t matter because the government is nonresponsive. Part of the reason the government is nonresponsive is because large portions of the electorate don’t vote. It’s a circular problem which isn’t anyone’s fault, per se, but Scott’s saying that there is a possible policy fix. I’m not exactly sure why you feel defensive about that; maybe someone somewhere was accusing you of something, but no one here did.
There are always at least n good reasons to vote Labour, where n=the number of Tories currently in government.
…and voting on Saturday is no big deal. There’s loads of polling places, and lines are short, so it’s, like 30 minutes out of your weekend, tops. And if even that is too much a PITA for somebody, they can always just postal or pre-poll
…and another thing (sorry about the bout of esprit d’escalier), re this: “Compulsory voting is a good idea because… what, it benefits supposedly left-wing parties?”
Well, yes. Not because I carry water for supposedly left-wing parties per se, but because the policies I favour are overwhelmingly more likely to come from them, and the policies I oppose are overwhelmingly more likely to come from the Liberal/National/Forces of Darkness Parties. I mean, fancy-pants arguments about increasing civic spirit are nice and all, but I’m self-cynical enough to think that, if compulsory voting favoured the other side, I’d suddenly find libertarian arguments against it a million times more compelling.
(Not that compulsory voting has led Australia into a socialist utopia, nor that our Labor party is some platonic ideal of left-wing policy. Far from it, alas)
BTW, thanks, Scott, for the reference to that paper
“Compulsory voting is good because it fosters civic spirit.”
I’m not sure why one would assume such a thing. Compulsory voting fosters voting, just as jury duty fosters participation on juries. But participation isn’t spirit. At best, compulsory voting would create a sense of shared burden (with the occasional bit of excitement about a candidate).
Don’t get me wrong, I’d probably support compulsory voting for the same reasons I support jury duty. But civic spirit is notoriously tough to cultivate.
I think compulsory voting would lead people to (a) pay slightly more attention to elections; (b) feel slightly more invested in their country. I think it can be too easy to be cynical about this sort of thing. There’s really a ton of evidence that people’s beliefs are affected by what they do, as much as (probably more than) the other way around.
I agree that behavior can lead to changes in feeling and belief. I think the difference is in my belief that voting is an overemphasized dimension of civic culture (compared to informal deliberative processes that play out in public forums). My concern is that without the cultural institutions necessary to a civic culture the behavioral component will be impotent.
Noah –
You’re right of course, that no one accused me of anything here, so apologies if that seemed a bit irritable (posting while working late last night). Although it was aimed more at Jones’ “partisan” argument than your comments.
All the same, I can’t see why low turnout at elections is a problem at all, so long as anyone who wants to vote can, easily. By all means encourage people to do it if you think its worthwhile – paid public holidays for elections are an idea – but I don’t think the threat of fines will do a lot for anyone’s cynicism.
Assuming it is cynicism – there are quite rational reasons for not voting, whether you agree with them or not. I’m actually a bit surprised you believe legal compulsion is a good way of getting people to do stuff.
Jones –
Yeah, sorry to you too.
Can’t entirely go with you on the policies coming from left-wing parties thing though, what with the last labour government here being big on privatistion, going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, abolishing free higher education, and … well, you get the idea; I’m sure you’re familiar with all the arguments and make the compromises you can live with like we all do.
But at least you don’t think its your civic duty.
Yeah, but Blair was a Tory in (not very convincing) sheep’s clothing
Low turnout, when not the result of voter suppression, is a good thing. It denies the established parties the appearance of a popular mandate when they’ve all failed to do what the voters wanted. Compulsory voting obscures this (because in practice, if people have to vote, then the ones who otherwise wouldn’t have voted at all tend to vote for one of the established parties instead of casting protest votes).
I was just thinking – honest to God, just, like, two hours ago – that, as the 19th century Romantic nature worship – and its vulgar analog, the cult of middle class domesticity – was an attempt to salvage some of the old religious order after the French Revolution, so maybe are Postmodernism and identity politics an attempt to salvage some of the pre-’60s civic discipline, after that revolution.
I feel all confirmed now!
Jones – True, but convincing enough to get most of the party behind him; all very blatant, but not particularly unusual. I believe the technical term is parliamentary cretinism.
“Low turnout, when not the result of voter suppression, is a good thing. It denies the established parties the appearance of a popular mandate when they’ve all failed to do what the voters wanted.”
This seems bizarre to me. George Bush lost the popular vote in 2000; lack of a mandate didn’t matter much, that I recall. On the one hand, completely ephemeral and non-consequential bragging rights; on the other, actual policy changes. I’m not sure why this is even a question…
Sean, in general I’m not into coercion…but compulsory voting seems like it would be pretty gentle, with a good chance of reducing harm. I’m pretty willing to compromise absolute principles in the name of harm reduction most of the time (again, not all of the time. I try to be flexible about these things.)
I’m curious how it works in Australia…but I’d imagine that even a small fine which can be easily avoided through a couple of forms would increase voting dramatically. it’s the difference between opt in and opt out; seems like it shouldn’t matter that much, but has a huge effect on what people do.
@Noah
Not what I’m talking about. What I am talking about is how embarrassed people were when the 2014 turnout was 35.9%.
(Oops, wrong table – 36.4%.)
Come on. No one was embarrassed. Who even remembers that? I pay attention to politics pretty obsessively, and don’t remember anyone even mentioning it. It’s barely even a talking point.
2014 election turnout is only mentioned as a problem for Democrats, not as an embarrassment for the Republic.
Second result for Google search “2014” “turnout”: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/opinion/the-worst-voter-turnout-in-72-years.html
What does this prove, Graham? Was there a big debate about the legitimacy of the government?
Honestly, it’s bizarre to me how the supposedly most cynical people latch onto the most naive suppositions about the political process. Better not to have people voting, or I won’t be able to argue in some comments section that the US is illegitimate! It’s silliness. Mandates are bs that give pundits something to talk about. They mean nothing; no one cares.
I’m pretty sure I’m not cynical, and I certainly don’t suppose myself to be.
I think you care.
Care about what? That people don’t vote?
Sure, but not because I think the US govt is illegitimate if they don’t. I care because I want people to have a say in their government, and because I think we’d have a better government if more people voted.
Also, in case you missed it, as far as policy preferences go, I’m effectively nobody. Politicians aren’t pandering to me, that’s for sure.
I think you care about mandates.
Not voting is saying something about your government. Requiring people to vote, or even forcing them to actively opt out*, makes it more difficult for people to say.
* On which note, as a general rule, if Cass Sunstein says it’s a good idea, it isn’t.
I know you’re nobody, that’s one thing I admire about you. But my nobody-ishness is even bigger than yours.
The ‘phony mandate’ problem (if it is a problem) is easily solved by combining mandatory voting with a ‘none of the above’ category on the ballot. Voters can thus express their disapproval.
BTW Australia is far from the only country to impose mandatory voting. It’s there in Switzerland and Belgium, among others.
Out of curiosity and for a change of pace, does anybody here believe its possible to write a story from the perspective of a character who is known to have committed a rape, ABOUT the rape, that doesn’t run into the problem described in the Interrobang article? Because it seems you either run into a redemption arc, which is obviously awful, or a demonization arc, which denies the ways in which the victim and the various people connected to the victim and rapist perceive the person who committed the rape. Is there a third way, or is it just impossible to write that story without it being awful?
Yeah, voters can, but in practice they don’t.
I very pointedly stayed home in 2012 -the only time I’ve ever done that- which was intended as a vote in itself. While I appreciate the intent of mandatory voting, I find the practice of forcing participation in democracy rather undemocratic…
@Petar Well, there’s this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPYjqz7nToY
“I think you care about mandates.”
I’m pretty sure I don’t? I guess it depends on what you mean…I certainly care about voting rights. I think democratic legitimacy can work in a lot of ways. I don’t think our current government is illegitimate.
Petar, the obvious example of a story told from the point of view of the rapist which (imo) morally condemns rape is Nabokov’s Lolita.
“I find the practice of forcing participation in democracy rather undemocratic…”
Is forcing people to pay taxes undemocratic? This would be a lot less onerous than that…
I would say [i]Lolita[/i] can’t morally condemn rape because (1) Nabokov doesn’t have a moral bone in his body and (2) the whole point is that the girl is more sexually mature than the man, thus as far as the book is concerned, it isn’t statutory rape.
Oh, I really disagree with that. I think Nabokov is a very moral writer. And the book absolutely believes it’s statutory rape; Humbert is a monster.
I mean, Nabokov is tricky, and multiple readings are possible, but I really don’t think the message of Lolita is, or is meant to be “statutory rape is okay.”
Everybody in the book is a monster. Humbert is just a much weaker monster than Lolita.
Certainly Lolita doesn’t at all say that statutory rape is okay – because Nabokov isn’t interested in what’s okay.
No, I think he is. And Lolita is in no way a monster. She’s a kid.
The third sentence doesn’t substantiate the second.
“The ‘phony mandate’ problem (if it is a problem) is easily solved by combining mandatory voting with a ‘none of the above’ category on the ballot. Voters can thus express their disapproval.”
Actually, you don’t need that category, when you can just cast an informal vote, or, as we call them in Australia (I think it’s an Australianism?), a donkey vote.
Plus we have a whole lot more minor political parties for people to cast a protest vote with.
According to Brian Boyd, Nabokov said Lolita was his second most admirable character (after Pnin). The idea that she’s a monster (because she escapes her pedophile stepfather to run away with a rival pedophile?) is extremely stupid.
Stupid people always thinks smart people are extremely stupid.
Obviously Lolita isn’t a monster because she ditches Humbert, nor for that matter because she pursues him until she gets bored with him (though that’s the part that most obviously needs explaining away if you want the book to be moral), but rather because she’s a creature of pure self-centered will and animal vitality, which is to say, in Nabokov’s calculus, an average ’50s all-American 12 year old girl.
Yes, but smart people always think that stupid people are stupid.
It’s true that Lolita develops a crush on Humbert, apparently has sex with a boy at camp, and goes on to initiate sex with Humbert. It’s also true that she initially regards sex as some kind of kid’s game, immediately realizes that something was very wrong about her encounter with Humbert, is grief-stricken by the death of her mother, and from then on longs for a normal family life instead of Humbert’s “parody of incest.” To say that she’s more sexually mature than Humbert or that she leaves him simply because she’s bored is ridiculous.
Nabokov wrote that Lolita had “no moral in tow,” but that doesn’t mean there was absolutely no moral dimension to the book or his work in general. In his afterward, he defined “aesthetic bliss” as “a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.” Kindness is linked to morality, right? His work includes plenty of moral judgments; he obviously disapproves of the USSR and approves of Pnin’s friendship with his ex-wife’s son, for example. And he obviously disapproves of Humbert, whom he called a “vain and cruel wretch.”
Isn’t pretty much assumed that we can’t be sure of anything about Lolita given that everything we know about her comes from Humbert?
@Jack Yes, but you’re not smart.
Yeah, that he’s boring.
@Nate
We can’t be sure of anything about any literary character. As for the rest, no. Like everybody, what Humbert means to say and what he actually says are different things. So we know something about the effect she had on Humbert, and not just what he intends us to know.
“Yes, but you’re not smart.”
Really, Graham? Again with the personal insults? How many times can you be asked not to do this? What’s next, comparing dick sizes?
But Humbert isn’t like everybody… He’s an unreliable narrator even by Nabakov’s standards. Also, Humbert is the sole narrator, which means we can only know (in the strict sense) what he wants us to know. Come on man, it’s the basic conceit of the novel! Sure, you can make an implied author argument to make a case for what Nabokov thought of Lolita, but to suggest this doesn’t make Lolita more ephemeral than your average titular character is pretty disingenuous.
These are lines from the scene immediately following Lolita’s first sexual encounter with Humbert:
More and more uncomfortable did Humbert feel. It was something quite special, that feeling: an oppressive, hideous constraint as if I were sitting with the small ghost of somebody I had just killed…. As she was in the act of getting back into the car, an expression of pain flitted across Lo’s face. It flitted again, more meaningfully, as she settled down beside me. No doubt, she reproduced it that second time for my benefit. Foolishly, I asked her what was the matter. “Nothing, you brute,” she replied. “You what?” I asked. She was silent. Leaving Briceland. Loquacious Lo was silent. Cold spiders of panic crawled down my back…. “You chump,” she said, sweetly smiling at me. “You revolting creature. I was a daisy-fresh girl, and look what you’ve done to me. I ought to call the police and tell them you raped me. Oh, you dirty, dirty old man.” Was she just joking? An ominous hysterical note rang through her silly words.
Do you honestly believe that this scene is about her realizing that he’s boring?
@Jones Ha! You oleaginous little hypocrite. The first personal insult was by my aspiring boyfriend, at 12:42. So far, we’re 2-2.
How many times can I be asked not to do this? I think you should find out. (Or, alternately, you could of course try going through the person who actually matters, that is, the person who owns this blog.)
@Nate
So evidently you both were actually born yesterday and didn’t actually read the comment of mine to which you’re replying.
@Jack No, she gets bored after that. I’d ask if you really think it’s supporting your reading of her as the less savvy one (“You revolting creature. I was a daisy fresh girl…”), but of course you do, because you aren’t smart. (2-3 now, Jones!)
She’s expressing it in a jokingly melodramatic way, but she’s clearly beginning to realize that something bad has happened.
Although I still think you’re an idiot (3-3), I’ll admit that “my aspiring boyfriend” made me laugh.
There is a difference between calling an idea stupid and calling a person stupid — clever people can have dumb ideas, or express themselves badly — although, granted, it’s hard to sincerely maintain that difference in the heat of a comments thread.
Re: hypocrisy, I have insulted you in past threads, Graham, and I’m sorry I did it.
@Petar Duric:
If you write about rape from the rapist POV, the rapist will become the important character, and his victim is a minor character. I have been surfing some reviews of INEXCUSABLE on goodreads.com, and while I have gotten a pretty good idea of what kind of guy the main character is, I still know nothing at all about his victim. Is she a bookworm? A chearleader? Goth? Dunno. Not important. This story is not about her.
Likewise when a story is told from a profesional torturers POV. Linked below is a random review for ZERO DARK THIRTY. Notice how almost the entire review is focused on describing the torturer, while her victim barely is mentioned:
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/zero-dark-thirty-20121218
Admittedly, the central character in INEXCUSABLE is described as plenty unlikeable, but it is the POV *itself* which is the problem. The rape serves to make the main character (the rapist) interesting. This is the basic construction of the story. It is most likely well intended, but the more I dig into it, the less I like it.
@Jones I’m not.
Well, obviously.
So…I would appreciate if the insults could be stalled at their current count, even if the exchange seems mostly jocular at this point.
I’m with Jack on this. That passage seems pretty clearly to me to be Lolita realizing she’s been badly harmed, and Humbert trying to deny that he knows she knows she has been.
I’d say Lolita also pushes back against Kasper’s claim that a story told from the rapist’s POV means you learn nothing about the victim. I think you learn a lot about Lolita, even though the story is about how Humbert creates his own vision of Lolita in his head. Her reality strains at the edge of what he’s willing to tell us.
I would say it’s very difficult to do though, as the uncertainty about intent and message suggests in this thread. I think Nabokov is overall successful..but if my reading were Graham’s reading, I would think he’s failed.
Graham,
I read your comment, so I guess I was born yesterday, or maybe I just have the intellect of someone born yesterday. Anyway, I understood it to mean that Humbert’s narration tells us more than he intends it to tell us. By this, I took you to mean that Nabokov wants Humbert’s narration to reveal more than Humbert would like. The move to implied author (or implied narrator depending on the tradition of narrative theory/lit crit to which one adheres) is familiar to me, and I’ve seen it work. However, I see nothing in your reading of Lolita to support your claim that Humbert, through his narrative, reveals anything substantial about the character of Lolita. I’m open to the possibility, but don’t bother if you can’t keep the insults to yourself.
@Noah: You’re right, my layman ideas about the role of the POV is not some natural law which can’t be broken. I never intended to claim that. I just forgot to add the essential humble reservations: I think / maybe / in most cases / mostly / sometimes / arguably.
Anyhow, Nicole explain the boycut of INEXCUSEABLE with this words:
“We are not interested in redemption arcs for rapists. (…)
If Chris Lynch wanted to give somebody an arc in a post-Inexcusable world, it should not have been the rapist who still does not believe he did anything wrong. It should have been Gigi. Her recovery, her survival.
What Irreversible as a narrative seeks to do – to make rapists forgivable, to leave the victims forgotten in the wake of their supposed change-of-heart – is not one that we are interested in featuring.”
As I read this, she agrees with me that the rapist POV (in this case) bring focus on his humanity, which leaves less focus on the humanity of his victim.
However, I think she is dead wrong when she claim that the novel is a rape apology. It is not. The problem is that the books solid stand against rape goes something like this:
“Keir Sarafian, the flawed man character who has to confront his past actions and realize his potential, this fascinating person, it was really really truly wrong of him to rape whatshername.”
@Nate But Sesame Street told me I’m supposed to share.
“Is forcing people to pay taxes undemocratic? This would be a lot less onerous than that…”
In order; no and yes, of course. Mine was an ideological statement and your conclusion is a pragmatic one – apples and oranges.
—
On Lolita, nobody’s mentioned yet that it wasn’t very good. :D
That’s subjective, of course, but I didn’t enjoy reading it, didn’t feel like I’d really learned anything, and promptly forgot almost everything about it except how distancing I found the POV… There was something I found … oily about the tone, which I assume Nabakov intended, but very nearly all I got from reading it is to be able to say I did.
Graham,
In any other comment thread on any other website I’d just ignore you. But I’m pretty invested in what happens here, and I feel compelled to say something.
So, if you want to engage in an intellectual throw down that’s a-ok. I live in a world of intellectual throw downs. It’s how I earn my living. But I also spend a lot of time making sure those throw downs are productive, whether it’s moderating panels, running grad seminars or editing papers. Through this I’ve learned to recognize when someone is acting in good faith, and when they’re just being antagonistic. Here, and elsewhere, you proudly drift into the latter.
Lolita is of course very good, but that aside, BU is the first person in this comment section besides me who read it correctly.
@Nate So I’m not being as “productive” as a panel or grad seminar? Oh no, say it ain’t so.
The absence of antagonism is a sign of bad faith. It means you don’t really disagree with anything the other person is saying.
It’s clearly about a monstrous 12-year-old who seduces a man in his late 30s into marrying her mother, strikes up an affair with him, brilliantly manipulates him by making such statements as “You revolting creature. I was a daisy fresh girl,” realizes he’s boring, and dumps him. What other reading could there possibly be?
A lack of antagonism isn’t indicative of agreement. A lack of opposition is indicative of agreement. And for that matter, antagonism doesn’t indicate disagreement. You can antagonize a person while agreeing with their basic position (see any recent republican debate for examples).
@Jack That’s twice now that you’ve implied I’m saying the book is attacking Lolita and pitying Humbert…
…which not only has nothing to do with anything I’ve said here, but is outright contradicted by what I have said (that Nabokov isn’t interested in morality).
I’d speculate about what personal issues you’re working through here, but you’re boring.
@Nate A lack of antagonism is indicative of a lack of conviction in disagreement.
The other Republican candidates all disagree with deep conviction with what Trump has been saying about immigration (never mind the question of what anybody’s policies would actually be, they all deeply believe that nobody should even say what he’s saying).
@Graham Clark
“The other Republican candidates all disagree with deep conviction with what Trump has been saying about immigration (never mind the question of what anybody’s policies would actually be, they all deeply believe that nobody should even say what he’s saying).”
Sure, a lot of the candidates took aim at Trump’s rhetoric. But they also antagonized one another about immigration policy (see the early back and forth between Rubio and Cruz). I suppose you could argue that the antagonism there indicates a more basic level of disagreement over who should be president, but that strikes me as something of a stretch. Moreover, it doesn’t do much to undermine my point, which was that antagonism doesn’t necessarily indicate disagreement on the ostensible issue. To this I’d add that even when it does, it can mask the nature and extent of the disagreement (which you seem to suggest in your response).
Anyway, I think my real issue is that too often your antagonism doesn’t seem like a means to an end, but rather an end in itself, hence the comment about it not being very productive.
@Nate But antagonizing people who should be antagonized is productive.
re: the Republicans, remove Trump and this primary is no more antagonistic than the last two.
I didn’t say disagreement couldn’t be productive. I even said it could be a means to an end. I suggested that in the debates it might not be the best means to the end, but our disagreement isn’t about political rhetoric, it’s about whether your antagonism is productive of anything (other than your own amusement).
But antagonizing people who should be antagonized is productive.
It can be. Often it isn’t though. Also, people like power and bullying; just about everyone (certainly including me) enjoys hurting others for its own sake. So, it’s important to check yourself when you feel you’re fighting a battle for righteousness, I think. That sort of thing is too enjoyable to be altogether trusted.
“re: the Republicans, remove Trump and this primary is no more antagonistic than the last two.”
Take out all the water and the Pacific Ocean isn’t very wet.
“just about everyone (certainly including me) enjoys hurting others for its own sake” – That’s true, but on the other hand, suspicion of pleasure is itself suspicious.
Noah,
Your response makes it look like I authored Graham’s quote, and that you’re responding to me… Can you fix that? Thanks!
Relax, Nate. Nobody is going to think my writing is yours.
@Noah
“So, it’s important to check yourself when you feel you’re fighting a battle for righteousness, I think.”
I hope I don’t come across as fighting a battle for righteousness. Hell, I’ve qualified my questioning to death here, and I’ve agreed that antagonism can be productive, and I’ll agree that it’s pleasurable. My argument is really a lot more pragmatic (to borrow one of Noah’s favorite). It’s that there’s a pretty obvious point where antagonism ceases to be productive of any insight, or even amusing. At that point it just becomes stupid (to borrow one of Graham’s favorite terms).
He was addressing that to me, not you. (I’m not fighting a battle for righteousness, I’m fighting an extremely minor skirmish against unrighteousness.)
Edit: “To borrow one of Noah’s favorite terms.”
And Graham, I see what you did there, and maybe I just proved your point… That is, I proved it if your point is that my writing in the comments section is sloppy. That was the point, right?
Speaking of antagonism, one of the most antagonistic things I recall hearing was as a student. A prominent author from the philosophy department at a sister university gave a paper. It wasn’t very good. The respondent, who was supposed to engage with its thesis, praised the author for the clarity of his prose, and for his expert use of the semi colon.
No, my point was not that your writing here is sloppy. My writing here is incredibly sloppy. My point was my writing is better.
Nate, this back and forth is how (let’s arbitrarily say) 80% of any comment thread with Graham ends up. Why are you bothering?
@Jones Probably for the same reason that you’re making sure everybody knows just how much you’re totally not bothering.
“Probably for the same reason…”
Being an oleaginous hypocrite, I’m going to go against my own advice and ask: what do you think that reason is, Graham?
Because the names I’ve called you so obviously bother you.
Ugh. General apology for taking the Js bait (not for anything else). I won’t say “I’ll stop here,” because that would be like declaring victory, but I’ll try to stop about here, so need need to lock, if the power that is was considering that (of course, the power that is can still do it anyway).
“need need” – no need
Being insulted bothers people, regardless of whether they think the insults are justified. If I was in the supermarket and an obnoxious teenager (for some reason — let’s say they try to cut in in front of me and I call them out for it — but I needn’t try you to feel free to improvise your own reason here) called me a spastic faggot, I’d be upset, even though I’m neither, and don’t think there’d be anything wrong with being either, anyway.
I teach ethics to school-children, and even ten year-olds understand that you can argue with people without insulting them.
You’re right, though, I keep bothering for the same reason as Nate: “I’m pretty invested in what happens here, and I feel compelled to say something [about how every comment thread in which you are involved degenerates into this]”. Even though it’s like an iterative scorpion-and-frog routine.
There, I’ve given you at least five straight lines, Graham. Knock yourself out.
@Jones: Morbid curiosity? Self hate maybe? I don’t know. What I do know is that Graham is proving my point that he’s into antagonism for the sake of antagonism.
@Graham: I know what you meant… The typo was a synecdoche for what I took to be your general disdain for my writing.
Good lord, people. and graham especially.
I’m going to shut this down.