the new irrationalism
by Douglas Messerli
As I’ve written elsewhere, almost every year since
beginning my annual cultural memoirs in 2005, I have, during the last week of
July, looked into my invisible “magic ball” in order to see if I might glean a
new unifying concern for the year approaching. Although in 2015 I have already
committed in My Year 2016 to the
subject of “belief,” and have begun working on essays that relate to “How to
Believe,” perhaps, I now feel, I need to focus more carefully on the growing
irrationality of my own countrymen as well as citizens throughout the world.
Groups like ISIS, Al-Queda, and the Taliban have already forced us to face foes
that surely represented some of most irrational beings on the
earth—particularly from our point of view (if, indeed, US citizens feel that they
have any collective point of view).
The recent release of Woody Allen’s new film, An Irrational Man, along with the statements of numerous figures running for the President of the United States in 2016, particularly the almost completely irrational rants of Donald Trump, along with frighteningly absurd and, as President Obama himself commented, “sad” statements, such as Mike Huckabee’s latest rhetorical distortion (he described the President’s and other world leader’s proposed treaty with Iran as “marching Israel to the door of the ovens.”) and Ted Cruz’ outburst, who for days after refusing to say anything about Donald Trump’s outrageous commentaries, suddenly called House Leader Mitch McConnell a “liar.” Jeb Bush soon after spoke out for ending “Medicare.”
The recent release of Woody Allen’s new film, An Irrational Man, along with the statements of numerous figures running for the President of the United States in 2016, particularly the almost completely irrational rants of Donald Trump, along with frighteningly absurd and, as President Obama himself commented, “sad” statements, such as Mike Huckabee’s latest rhetorical distortion (he described the President’s and other world leader’s proposed treaty with Iran as “marching Israel to the door of the ovens.”) and Ted Cruz’ outburst, who for days after refusing to say anything about Donald Trump’s outrageous commentaries, suddenly called House Leader Mitch McConnell a “liar.” Jeb Bush soon after spoke out for ending “Medicare.”
These
comments came soon after Trump had described (despite his denials) most of the
Mexican immigrants as being criminals and rapists, argued that the Mexican
government was purposely sending them here, and boasted that if he were to
become President he would build a long wall across the border to be paid for by
the Mexican government.
A few days
later he inexplicably argued that Senator John McCain—who was imprisoned for
years in a Vietnamese prison where we was threatened and tortured—was not truly
a war hero, adding the ludicrous comment that “I like my heroes not be
imprisoned!” McCain is many things I do not admire, but to challenge his obviously
heroic war-time survival is truly beyond rational thought.
It is not
only his outrageous statements that makes Trump seem truly irrational, but his
belief that somehow because he has a great deal of money (the estimates of his
total worth vary widely) that he automatically is a good candidate. “I know
people in other countries,” he argues, as if having business relations with a
few executives makes him a specialist on foreign policy. He likes the Chinese,
“they’re smart,” he insists, as if all Chinese citizens were one and the same
and that the word “smart” had any meaning in his vacuous monologue.
Backing
off a bit from his attacks upon Mexico, Trump insisted that he “liked Mexicans”
and had many Mexicans working for him (which some journalists argued included
illegal immigrants). Once again he seemed to presume that a contention of
liking people of a certain country, particularly a people he condescendingly
puts to work, might prove that his previous comments were not bigoted and
incendiary.
As The New York Times, moreover, reminded
us again today—as if we needed any reminding, given Trump’s comments of the
past few weeks—that the billionaire tends to describe all those who disagree
with him about anything as “idiots,” “fools,” or “losers,” reassuring us that
he is a proven “winner” by the fact of his new financial worth. Certainly there
is no question that Trump equates money with knowledge and an ability to lead a
nation.
To me many,
if not all of these attitudes, reveal an inability to rationally discuss and a
refusal to deal with the truth. Obviously, politics, and, in particular,
presidential elections have from the founding of the US not always brought
about the greatest sanity in those running for election. There is, after all,
something quite irrational in even seeking such a position of power. Quite
obviously, I realize, some of these viewpoints are not necessarily irrational
but simply represent different world perspectives from mine. But many of these
views, as move toward open prejudice and even hysteria, come close to being
irrational.
I do think
it fascinating that not one Republican candidate of those in the lead (some
with such low ratings they clearly have little chance of being elected)—I here
include Trump, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Bobby
Jindal, Ben Carson, Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and
Rand Paul—supports gay marriage, for example, even though it is now the law of
the land. Some are willing to move on despite their disagreement with the
Supreme Court decision, but several of them (Carson, Perry, Santorum, Walker,
Jindal, Huckabee, and Rubio) are willing to either support an amendment or
other changes in the law to make same-sex marriage illegal. Carson argues that
being gay is a choice, and, recently, Walker told a CNN interviewer that he did
not know whether or not being gay was a choice. Santorum describes homosexuals
as being “Sodomists,” and argued that same-sex rights implies the same rights
for bigamists, those who commit incest, and adulterers (a strange statement, in
fact, because the last of these “sins,” adultery, is not nor has it ever been
in modern times against the law.) Jindal went so far as to demand the end of
the Supreme Court!
Almost all who
have addressed the issue are against the idea of including sexual orientation
as discriminatory, either in the marketplace or even in crimes of hate.
Every single
candidate for the Republican Party is against abortion, with many of them
voting against the idea of the right to privacy. Santorum, one of the most
extreme, would not even allow abortion in cases of rape. Carson persuaded the
mother of a hydrocephalic baby to cancel her planned abortion. Most oppose stem
cell research. Huckabee clearly crossed the “rational” line on July 31 by
stating that, if necessary, he would not rule out “employing US troops to stop
abortion,” suggesting that by doing so he would openly defy the Supreme Court.
All of the
Republicans running for president strongly believe in no further gun controls,
with some arguing for even fewer controls, Rubio arguing that the 2nd
Amendment is a cornerstone of our Constitution. Perry recently insisted that he
is entirely against “gun-free ranges,” arguing that people should be able to
carry guns everywhere, including into movie theaters, to protect themselves
and, perhaps, to kill would-be terrorists. He crosses further into
near-irrationality by arguing the some individuals are “legally obliged to carry guns” by the 2nd
Amendment rights. Walker also supports the right to openly carry arms.
After the
shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, Carson seemed to blame those
who were murdered by suggesting that had he been faced with such a shooter he
would have insisted his fellow students gang up on the shooter to attack, thus
preventing him from killing so many. Continuing in his blame the victims and
survivors, Carson, without any real evidence, argued that if the Jews had been
able to have guns there would have been no Holocaust.
All speak
out strongly against what they describe as Obamacare, including Trump, and many
oppose any federal money going for health care, some, as I described Bush,
above, are willing even to abandon Medicare and Medicaid. Carson would reconsider
Social Security. Trump is the only one willing to help some, very poor
individuals, to receive what even he describes as a far lower quality
healthcare—but only if they are dying.
If I suggest
the general pattern here is approaching irrationality simply because of the
general dismissal and intolerance of
individual sexual and reproductive differences, while simultaneously supporting
weapons whose major purpose is to kill animals and other human beings, these
candidates surely cross the line of rational thinking when they all, with the
exception of Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Paul Rand, disavow climate change or
raise significant questions about the validity of scientists who believe in
such changes. Typical of several of these deniers, Rubio throws up a barrier
around his words that hides a disdain for science and a lack of commitment to
their warnings. As he recently wrote:
Humans
are not responsible for climate change in the way
some of these people out
there are trying to make us believe,
for the following reason: I
believe the climate is changing
because there’s never been a
moment where the climate
is not changing. The
question is, what percentage of that …
is due to human activity? If
we do the things they want us to
do, cap-and-trade, you name
it, how much will that change
the pace of climate change
versus how much will that
cost to our economy?
Scientists can’t tell us what impact it
would have on reversing
these changes, but I can tell you
with certainty, it would
have a devastating impact on our
economy.
As the campaign moved forward, and it
became increasingly clear that a vast majority of Americans (Edward Malbach in
the October 16, 2016 edition of the Los
Angeles Times sited a Yale and George Mason university poll suggesting that
70% of Americans support placing stricter limits on carbon dioxide emissions) were
concerned about climate change, Rubio took the strange stance of arguing that “America
is not a planet,” hinting, apparently, that since the US is only a country it
cannot possibly take any action on climate change.
Bush continues the old dodge: “For the
people to say the science is decided on this is just really arrogant.” In fact,
scientists and environmentalists have long argued that climate change has
occurred, and now, we discover, that even Exxon Oil researchers had long ago perceived
that the climate was changing.
Others such as Huckabee and Walker use
the more standard hedge to dismiss discussing the issue by declaring that they
are not scientists, presumably, therefore, making them unable to have any sane
viewpoint on one of the most important issues of the environment today. In
other words, they cannot make a sane evaluation of the issue since, admittedly,
they are disinterested in scientific facts and dismissive of scientists
themselves.
Rand seems to have recently made a
turnaround in his position about global warming, joining 15 other GOP Senators
in signing an amendment stating that climate change is real and that humans
contribute to it. But as journalist Emily Watkins has warned, we have little
reason to believe that the Kentucky Senator is serious in these matters, having
spoken out against the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and even vowing to repeal them. In an interview from
2014, moreover, he commented that he was “not sure anybody exactly knows why”
global warming is occurring, describing the scientist’s predictions as
“alarmist stuff.” In his book of 2011 he wrote against “the radicalization of
the country by environmentalists” spearheaded by the “propaganda” and
“pseudoscience” of climate change. The newest candidate to enter the GOP race,
Ohio governor John Kaisch proclaimed the day before I penned this piece that,
although he admits climate change that it was dangerous to overreact. To
“worship” the environment is “pantheism,” he argued, suggesting he would not proceed
on any actions that might alter global warming.
Christie is the only one who has openly
confirmed that the climate is changing, and has actually supported legislation
to do something about it.
My comments above, moreover, say nothing
about how some of these men might behave with regard to foreign policy. Most
strongly support further NSA wiretapping and dismiss rights of privacy (Perry
and Paul are exceptions). Most, such as Bush, argue for embedding troops with
Iraqi forces. Perry wants to arm the Kurds and send special troops to battle
ISIS. Although not explaining what he specifically means, Christie has stated
“Given who I am, Putin would not have invaded Crimea.” Santorum argues not only
for soldiers on the ground to fight against ISIS but calls for the
assassination of Iranian and North Korean nuclear scientists. One can only
imagine the ramifications of these decisions.
Walker, as he has already done in
Wisconsin, would surely continue to try to weaken unions and destroy the
University and public school tenure systems, which allow scholars to speak out
both to their superiors and to share unpopular ideas with their students
without being easily fired. Again these are not necessarily irrational stands,
but certainly represent an attempt to delimit the bargaining powers of workers
and the free expression of scholars.
What we can suspect, simply based on his
near-lunatic insistence several years ago that President Obama was not born in
this country, that he will speak out even more provocatively than some of the
other candidates. He now is completely assured that Hillary Clinton, by using
her own email, committed a criminal act.
Later in his campaign Trump seemed to go
as far as blaming George W. Bush, Jeb’s brother, was in some way responsible
for the events of 9/11, since the attacks, as Trump puts it, “occurred upon his
watch.”
One of the appealing elements of Donald
Trump is that, in his uncontrolled ramblings he is immensely entertaining,
himself playing the role of the fool. I briefly joked that the GOP candidates
were lucky to have Trump running, simply because he made them all look so sane
and serious. But the jest quickly seemed stale the more I saw how the condition
seemed to catching.
Carson has increasingly made outrageously
incendiary comments, arguing that he could not support a Muslim for
president—despite the Constitution’s assertion that religious belief has no
role in who can run for that position. He also argued that “The Pledge of
Allegiance,” adopted by Congress in 1942 from Francis Bellamy’s 1892-composed
pledge, represented one of the founding documents of the United States that asserted
we were a Christian nation. Evidently no one had advised that the term “under
God” only came to be adapted into the Pledge during Eisenhower’s presidency in
1954.
Moreover, it does not explain why such
irrational statements continue to put both Trump and Carson higher in the
polls. Nor does it clarify why he and his peers are not openly challenged for
so many of their mean-spirited and quite illogical views.
Even if we are to allow for the fact that
politicians are particularly bellicose folk, with a long tradition of hateful
statements, we must also recognize that American leaders are not the only
irrational leaders of the day: one need only hear the threats of the Iranian
leaders, of absurd commentaries of the Supreme Leader of North Korean Kim
Jong-un, the frightful posturing and outright lying of Russian President
Vladimir Putin, or even the sometimes bullying tactics of Israel Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, for example, to realize that irrational behavior is an
international phenomena.
By the time of the South Carolina primary
elections, Trump, Rubio, and Cruz were all describing one another as
out-and-out-liars, threatening to sue (Trump threatened Cruz), and attempting
to drown each other’s voices with shouts and abuses in their debates.
As it became increasingly apparent that Trump actually had the possibility to win the Republican election, his behavior became increasingly outrageous, badmouthing the other candidates (who had, in fact, descended into his own juvenile tactics of name-calling), and even refusing to thoroughly disavow his own campaign with the support of KKK-supporter David Duke and the Ku Klux Khan in general. Even the most conservative of the Republican supporters clearly had begun to question what their politics had begat. As many pundits noted, we were witnessing, perhaps, the complete collapse of the Republican Party.
With the death of Antonin Scalia, major Republicans, both those running for the presidency and those in the Senate were ready to even deny any confirmation of a new justice which President Obama might nominate. This further attempt to end any normal governmental action clearly represented why so many voters had become angry—even if they often worked against their own best interests by pushing for people with little or no experience. Government, it appears, had become permanently disrupted by our deep partisan divides.
The Republican “collapse” seemed to continue when a pact of major Republican donors and former Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney spoke out against Trump and threatened to support either Cruz or Rubio. Yet even these endeavors seemed to have little impact on Trump’s growing populist support, whose followers swore oaths to vote to him that reminded many of the Nazi salute to authoritarian control. It became increasingly clear that Trump was not as much interested in a presidential image as he was in presenting himself in the role as a smart ruler, ordering people to be removed from his gatherings not only for protests and interruptions but, apparently, even if the color of the attendees’ skin suggested that they “might” protest. Many of his supporters joined in denigrating these protesters, arguing that he (Trump), as their leader, had the right to do this, presumably supporting their “right” to further humiliate them.
Despite denials by some of his supporters, it became clearer every day that Trump was using racism to gain the vote of his primarily working-class, white supporters. In early March Trump again spoke out against Islam values, later restating it as a position against “radical” Islam cultural perspectives. His constant restatement that “we need to look into this” suggested that he had had not, himself, deeply investigated the values he was expressing. His, we must remember, is position similar to the satirical idiot of Jerzy Kosinski’s and Hal Ashby’s Being There, who gets all of his information from TV.
As it became increasingly apparent that Trump actually had the possibility to win the Republican election, his behavior became increasingly outrageous, badmouthing the other candidates (who had, in fact, descended into his own juvenile tactics of name-calling), and even refusing to thoroughly disavow his own campaign with the support of KKK-supporter David Duke and the Ku Klux Khan in general. Even the most conservative of the Republican supporters clearly had begun to question what their politics had begat. As many pundits noted, we were witnessing, perhaps, the complete collapse of the Republican Party.
With the death of Antonin Scalia, major Republicans, both those running for the presidency and those in the Senate were ready to even deny any confirmation of a new justice which President Obama might nominate. This further attempt to end any normal governmental action clearly represented why so many voters had become angry—even if they often worked against their own best interests by pushing for people with little or no experience. Government, it appears, had become permanently disrupted by our deep partisan divides.
The Republican “collapse” seemed to continue when a pact of major Republican donors and former Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney spoke out against Trump and threatened to support either Cruz or Rubio. Yet even these endeavors seemed to have little impact on Trump’s growing populist support, whose followers swore oaths to vote to him that reminded many of the Nazi salute to authoritarian control. It became increasingly clear that Trump was not as much interested in a presidential image as he was in presenting himself in the role as a smart ruler, ordering people to be removed from his gatherings not only for protests and interruptions but, apparently, even if the color of the attendees’ skin suggested that they “might” protest. Many of his supporters joined in denigrating these protesters, arguing that he (Trump), as their leader, had the right to do this, presumably supporting their “right” to further humiliate them.
Despite denials by some of his supporters, it became clearer every day that Trump was using racism to gain the vote of his primarily working-class, white supporters. In early March Trump again spoke out against Islam values, later restating it as a position against “radical” Islam cultural perspectives. His constant restatement that “we need to look into this” suggested that he had had not, himself, deeply investigated the values he was expressing. His, we must remember, is position similar to the satirical idiot of Jerzy Kosinski’s and Hal Ashby’s Being There, who gets all of his information from TV.
What happened to argument and debate, or
what used to be described as diplomacy? Can people no longer have differing
viewpoints, particularly in a world of such radical divides, without calling
each other hateful names or simply dismissing the other’s values out of hand?
Particularly since we live in such
terrifying times, however, where some forces would wipe away presence of other
religious and cultural values and sexual mores, need we not go out of our way
to reestablish open discussions and dialogue within our own society?
Might there be a connection between these
intolerant expressions and seemingly increasing confrontations between citizens
going about on everyday occasions and police who quickly lose mental control,
ending up in the death of innocent, often black, women and men (such as Sam
Dubose, Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, and Walter Scott)? If we suspect that these
encounters, in fact, have been going on for a long time, but are just now being
caught on the cameras which are carried on i-phones and other devices by nearly
everyone, it, nonetheless, reveals irrational behaviors that continue to
separate us not only by race, but by social-economic status.
Just as dangerous, to my way of thinking,
is the overheated puffing and often personal attacks of Supreme Court Justice
Scalia’s dissents (which law professor, Edwin Chemerinsky argued recently in
the Los Angeles Times was badly
effecting his students by encouraging them to write ridiculing rather that
seasoned statements), or the Facebook, Twitter, and attacks elsewhere on young
teenagers, casual acquaintances, and writers (the fates of authors Kenneth
Goldsmith and Vanessa Place come immediately to mind), all of which makes me
fear that this kind of irrational behavior has become deep-set in our culture.
In the end, perhaps, it is our blind
commitment to our beliefs or our inability to no longer believe that fuels this
kind of irrationality. Those who believe do so with a furor of intensity and
mission, while those who can no longer believe often disdain and mock those who
insist they still can and must! Both are different ends of the same gluttonous
serpent, swallowing itself out of desperation and fears, both ends spewing
their own admonitions and dismissals.
If, as many religious scholars and
international analysts have argued, that the current violent Islamic groups at
war with the West do not represent a rejuvenation of faith, but the last gasp
of it, then perhaps we ought to question if some of those same issues are not
at play in our own world. Tea-Party politics and ultra-conservative groups are
not necessarily representative of a revival of that old time religion, but
rather of their failure to dominate the American consciousness. For them, the
black liberal Obama is apparently a demon to which they can point for their
feelings of being ignored and unheard. While the liberals, on the other hand,
have often attempted to turn the same man into a shining soldier of their
empowerment. That the very human being in between these visions accomplished
anything during his years as President—and he surely has—is a kind of
inexplicable miracle itself. But if we truly want to move forward—or even
backward in some instances—we will have to cease in this irrational hatred and
learn again how to talk.
Los Angeles, July
29, July 31, October 13, October 17, and December 14, 2015, January 7, February
2,, February 17, February 29, and March 10, 2016