For the last several years I've been collecting material for a book project on right wing rhetoric and thought. I figure DK is a good place to share some of my reflections as my work progresses. I'm primarily a theoretician, and that's the perspective I offer. Others are doubtless better historians and more talented political analysts. As a theoretician, I'm interested in categorization and differentiation between progressive and right wing perceptions and world-views, and this requires I speak in generalities when assessing group behavior. As such, I'm uninterested in individual exceptions to rules, but quite happy if you can contest my point of view with a preponderance of evidence that suggests I reformulate a categorical distinction.
Among an assortment of appalling historical revisions, the Texas Board of Education has decreed that the Newspeak term "free-enterprise system" be substituted for "capitalism" in the state social studies curriculum. Although this was a relatively mild modification compared to the wholesale dismissal of Thomas Jefferson and the outright denial of separation of church and state, the thought of it has been gnawing at me all day.
What is it with right wingers and speech? Why are they constantly campaigning to eradicate words in the English language ("gender" is also off limits in the Texas curriculum), to change the names of everyday objects ("Freedom Fries," anyone?), to turn benign labels into epithets ("Liberal!"), and to degrade the meaning of certain words ("Socialist!" "Fascist!" "Communist!" "Muslim!") until they are indistinguishable snarling synonyms for Pure Evil? Why do talking points work so well for right wingers, and why are they so amenable to parroting Fox Network sound bites, and so prone to saying "ditto"? And why, when their viewpoints are challenged, is their common reaction to simply say the same things over and over again, louder and louder?
I confess to being a semiotician, and thus (perhaps perversely) fascinated with the arbitrary connection between words and meanings. For most of my career I've studied the cultural tug-of-war over the ownership and definition of controversial terms (for example, "genocide" and "Holocaust," "sexism," and "racism"), and I think I have a pretty good understanding of the ideological struggles embodied in the wrestling match over definitions. (Roland Barthes calls these words "traumatic floating signifiers," indicating divisions within the cultural consensus deep enough to trouble the waters.) But what's going on with right wingers and language seems to be something quite different than a struggle to fix meaning or to redefine terminology; rather, it seems a project dedicated to erasing the trauma of uncertainty by eradicating the word along with what it signifies, and turning it into "that which cannot be named."
As in the case of "capitalism" and "free-enterprise system," the erasure of some words is effected by the chanting of other words. I say "chanting" advisedly, because I mean this in a ritual sense: the "negative" connotations of capitalism are magicked away by the endless repetition of "free-enterprise" (with emphasis on the word "free" -- a right wing favorite; see "Freedom Fries" above). If you ask the average carrier of the ubiquitous tea party Socialist+Fascist signs to define those terms, they probably won't manage to come up with even the weak rationales for conflation put forward by right wing apologists. They will, however, repeat the charges while increasing the volume, particularly if the request to clarify comes from The Enemy (usually personified by representatives of the "liberal media"; otherwise known as "the media except for Fox News").
Repetition is a key feature in religious ritual, emphasizing unity of belief and purpose. Repetition requires submission rather than independent thought, and creates a sense of community as individuals subsume themselves in the greater whole. Repetition is not discourse, and no exchange of ideas can take place when one party is engaging in the strategy. (This is demonstrated to most of us very early, when we're the victim of parroting, in which our tormentor slowly drives us mad by simply repeating everything we say.) Chanting is the very antithesis of exchange, and frightened people do it when they hope to keep the devil from the door, whether it's the frenzied repetition of the Lord's Prayer in the face of suspected witchcraft, or bellowing a united "Tell The Truth!" in the face of CNN reporters. The whole point of a chant is to drown out opposing views and to prevent them from penetrating the curtain of sound.
The Left chants too, of course, and there are quite a few right wingers whom progressives would be happy to drown out. But Left chanting doesn't seem to be coupled with the same depth of commitment to destroying discourse in general. While liberals and progressives (at least nominally) pride themselves on their ability to debate rationally, right wingers lionize the champions of uncivil discourse and revel in O'Reilly's hollered "Shut up!", Limbaugh's coarse personal assaults on individuals and groups he opposes ("Feminazi!"), and Beck's outright hang-ups on callers with whom he disagrees. I won't go on about this, because others have written about it at length (for example Carl Boggs and Diane Mutz). My point here is simply that this is another tactic by which the far right forecloses discussion and eschews meaningful language, and resorts instead to a series of shrieks and blood-curdling howls. Though it may appear dismissive, the latter statement is actually descriptive of the response provoked when people are subjected to utterly devastating traumatic experience, a world-threatening terror -- in this case, the yawning chasm that opens up under right wing feet when their basic yet indefensible assumptions are threatened by exposure to reality. (I promise more about the precarious nature of irrational belief systems in a future essay.)
This is the reason that rational people get into trouble when they try to counter right wing talking points with evidence and arguments. "Talking point," is a misnomer, since the real strategy is to substitute repetition for exchange -- an incantation that protects its wielder from having to engage in that frightening activity we call "conversation." A talking point is a right wing mantra that protects the user from the complexities of real life. This is why, when you push a right winger's assertions to the wall, what you get is a word screen, a babbling (and sometimes roaring) brook of magically endowed phrases ("freedom!" "Patriot!" "real American!" vs. "Terrorist!" "Anti-American!" "Traitor!") to ward off the Evil Eye. In the end, it's logic vs. magic: words become talismanic and sound bites are ala kazams to drive away the darkness.
This is something that Orwell touched on in his wonderful evocation of Newspeak, with its emphasis on the perversion of grammar and erasure of doubleplusungood words and concepts. Orwell despises the simplified language of totalitarianism, but even he didn't anticipate a corruption of language so deep that words no longer possess even incorrect definitions, but become signifiers only of panic, and placeholders for mindless fear.
I'll leave you here, teetering on the edge of a much deeper abyss. In my next diary I want to discuss the implications of recent psychological studies of differences between conservatives and liberals, and connect those to a narrative about the formation of right wing world views.
Peace.