THB #524: Too Much
I just spent an hour on my lawn arguing, in friendship, with a neighbor.
It doesn’t matter what it was about, though I bet you can guess.
The point it… like so many things these days, it was an argument not about the actual issue, but about taking positions that are too extreme to even allow for any real discourse.
We live in a “everything is a nail to a hammer” era. Anything less than the most absolute answer, from whichever perspective one is arguing, is not only disagreeable, but somehow, proof that the non-absolutist is making excuses for the opposing position… or even supporting it in the most extreme way.
Worse, as someone who does not believe in many absolutes in the world, I find myself getting sucked into overreaching to try to balance the scales in many of these conversations. There is a natural lean towards the binary in a direct confrontation. And it’s a bad thing.
I’m a pretty good arguer. I’m fast and I can throw out a load of facts, to the point of being oppressive. But I’ve never wanted to win arguments less. It’s like I am fighting with the goal of reaching a draw. That’s the closest I can get to a win lately.
I don’t take much satisfaction from someone agreeing with me on a complex point. It’s always pleasant, but it seems too easy, preaching to the converted. But when someone disagrees with an extreme position and the verbal fight ensues and stats are flying and every factual event gets turned on its head to fit whatever position is being taken… it seems we are no longer fighting about whatever we are trying to fight about. We are fighting about ideas that are usually not well served by detailed arguments over facts or history because those are sidebars being used to deflect the core disagreement… which may be too complicated to settle. Unsettled has become like death to many.
One of the lessons I have taken from decades of my work, writing about movies and television and theater and journalism and the business around them, is that there is no point in arguing taste.
If you love a movie that I think is a rancid turd… what I think doesn’t matter. Conversely, how you feel doesn’t inherently change my feelings. This is not only okay, but it is unavoidable.
Over the years, there have been entertainment about which my writing has changed perspectives on that work for some people. The most classic is Eyes Wide Shut, which is a movie that I believe even its co-screenwriter did not understand. But if you take the time - many, many views - to deconstruct Kubrick’s intention, the movie makes much more sense than a simple reading would suggest. A couple Christmas’ ago, it was Babylon, a movie that I believe took it in the gut because audiences were not prepared to take the journey the film offered. (There are also some weaknesses in the film that I wish were different… but not enough to create some of the deep hatred there was for the film in many circles.) And there was Fight Club, which I turned some minds on by coming up with the clear reflection of The Graduate in the film (while the skins could not be more different).
I have often written about Manohla Dargis’ Village Voice review of Fincher’s Alien 3, which offered the only explanation of the film that I think made any sense. (Fincher has denied it… but I still don’t believe him.)
But ultimately, people feel about film/television/theater/art what they feel. Most often, it is not an intellectual process. It’s a feeling. And feelings are undeniably natural to each of us. (This is why I see movies I consider “important” multiple times before writing about them if I can… because I know my personal subjectivity can overwhelm my objectivity… and I need both to do what I think is a fair look at the work.)
In improv, the first principle you are taught is, “Yes, And...” The idea is that when someone else in a scene says something, no matter how outrageous, you accept it as real and you add to it. This expands the range of ideas in a scene, as opposed to closing the door with a, “No” or even a “Yes, But...”
Of course, there is no disagreement in the theatrical world of “Yes, And…” A fiction is being advanced with full intention…. details of which you hope connect to a shared truth in the audience.
But we have seen the bastardization of this concept in real-life interviews with the public on issues in which they offer only absolutism, on all sides. Whatever you ask, the answer is, “Yes, And…” You get the feeling, quite often, that they aren’t even listening or paying attention to what is being asked. They are saying, “Yes” just so they shut the person questioning them up and continue espousing whatever position that are taking.
The people who do this are not (all) idiots. But when you leave a crack in your position that potentially allows someone with an opposing idea to exploit the vulnerability, you may see your absolutism crumble. And the more extreme the position, the scarier it is to allow for any vulnerabilities.
It’s the difference between getting your hand caught in the cookie jar and being caught stealing all the grocery money out of the family cookie jar so the family cannot eat for the next week. Both are theft. But they are not the same.
As a result, the rhetoric gets more and more harsh. The murder of hundreds or thousands of people is not okay. But raising the bar to “genocide” makes the wall too high for any disagreement. You “win” the argument by making your position, even if rationally inaccurate, insurmountable. Faced with any disagreement on the specific rhetoric, people will cite others who have used the word(s), therefore again fortifying the position. And the more the opinion is repeated, the bigger the snowball.
Not to make light of it, but it puts me in mind of Richard Mulligan’s producer in S.O.B., trying to convince his wife (Julie Andrews) to do nudity on camera, citing great actresses who have done it… culminating in, “LIV ULLMAN!!!”
For the record, that argument did not win the day, so much as the alcohol and drugs that loosen her up for “the moment” of exposure. But that was decades ago.
Aside from my very strong political feelings against Donald Trump, I am gobsmacked on a daily basis by the comfort with which at least a third of this country simply deny an entire lifetime of terrible, often criminal, behavior. It’s not just the anti-Biden of it… he won the GOP primaries with ease.
Some people talk about not looking down on Trump supporters. But at this point, we are not living on the same intellectual planet. There can be no conversation because facts mean absolutely nothing.
The other day, I was thinking that I could see the argument of a Trump supporter claiming that Trump was not guilty of all the crimes for which he is now indicted. I could engage with some of the rationalizations about why he (or others, from, say, January 6) should not be punished… for instance, that he did not directly tell the rioters at The Capitol to riot, in specific words. I don’t know that my position would change. But I would be willing to take it seriously.
But I cannot… because the ground on which the conversation takes place… the foundational facts… cannot be agreed upon. If you demand that the foundational discussion start with the idea that what happened on January 6 was tourism and not a riot… sorry… not on my planet. Any discussion of degree is out the window.
We are arguing as a culture by avoiding any real arguments. All the oxygen gets sucked out of the room so the candle can never be lit.
Words like ‘genocide” are not inherently political. It is a term with a specific meaning. And using it requires the accepting of its very strong, overwhelmingly horrible subtext.
If you believe that two sides in a dispute earnestly want to eliminate the other group from existence, how can you take sides? How do you decide which one is right and which one is wrong?
At this time, I find that most people - on both sides - simply move on from the details of that conversation. There is no real factual foundation to claiming that a group of millions of people wants one thing. You can only truly judge by actions. “Well, X said this!” “But Y said this!” X and Y are individuals or representatives of some portion of some group within any culture. They are not The Fact.
Then you get into “Well, they clearly want this because they have done that for decades.” I would suggest to any rational person that decades of behavior suggest that the behavior - however offensive, in and of itself - is what “they” want to do… then you get get into why “they” want “that” and what the goals of “that” are.
But we can’t even get there because “the other side” is constantly being demonized… and really, anyone who is not 100% in lockstep with either side of so many arguments is also demonized, because it’s all or nothing.
And again… I have been making this argument about both the left and the right for a very long time. When 80%+ agreement is not enough to be “on the same team”… often 90% or more… there is no real discourse possible.
We are killing our culture with good intentions… and I am not being facetious, because both sides of almost every argument are absolutely sincere about their position.
So much of this moment in history is as complex as any period in history… if not more so because of the speed and relentlessness of communication.
There is nothing okay about being inhumane to others without the real effort to avoid that inhumanity just because you have the power to control things that others do not have.
You can take this notions and attach it to something as small as how you treat a grocery store cashier or as big as a war. Abortion rights and how you park your car in a public area. What do you do when you see someone having a heart attack on the street and what do you do when you fart in an elevator.
But then it gets very complicated. And no one really wants to feel like they are on the wrong side of anything, much less the things that really matter. So the rationalization begins.
The United States committed genocide against Native Americans, enslaved more than ten million Black people mostly stolen from other nations, and stole/annexed Texas from Mexico… and that was before we extended our military and political influence across the globe. We are the richest country in the world and millions of Americans are hungry and/or homeless.
What is our basis for claiming moral superiority?
Let’s say you feel that we are operating from a “we are in less than a superior position.” How do you choose which bad behaviors to rage against? You might be aware of “all” of them, but the reality of rage that reaches beyond the personal is that focus shifts from issue to issue in the culture, never addressing “all.”
But let’s boil it down further. Let’s not ask anyone to take responsibility for the entire history of this nation (or any other) because that can only lead to an inability to make any full-throated argument at all.
What activates cultural rage about one thing when there are so many to choose from?
And how can what often seems like instant cultural rage - 2 years or less in developing - manifest smart, reasonable, achievable goals in the heat of a hot moment?
“I don’t want it to be like that anymore” can be very righteous, very liberating, and an absolutely reasonable desire. But it is not a plan for the future. And making an argument about complex issue should not be attached to a demand that you have a fully executable plan for the future. Right is right and wrong is wrong.
But when engaging in conversation, with those who agree or disagree, you have to be willing to work down the road of expected and unexpected consequences of change, instant, soon-to-come, or long range. Yes, people can make excuses for inaction by demanding plans of action from others. But assuming the engagement is sincere, you can’t just shut down the exchange of ideas because you don’t want to take responsibility for considering the messy details. They are as much a part of the solution as your sense of right and wrong, if not more so.
Anyway… I find myself beating my head against the wall far too often these days. And I HATE patronizing people I respect by just disengaging… which is often all there is to do.
I don’t need to “win” an argument to feel fulfilled. But I want to hear. And I want to be heard. And if the middle ground is too hard to reach, so be it.
But the idea, so popular these days, that compromise - the middle - is failure… it lessens us all. And it leaves me very sad and frustrated and saying and thinking things I don’t really mean.
“Oh no I've said too much
I haven't said enough…”
Until tomorrow…