DU is silly sometimes. Big issues and big problems are often the subjects of our discussion, yet we find an almost insatiable urge to run away from acknowledging complexity; to hide in safe, simplistic, supposedly "evocative" trifles instead. This isn't a DU phenom so much as it is a human one. Found an issue too big to straddle confidently? Unable to declare your superior understanding? Too many weird and unexpected angles? Too much complexity? No problem--hack off a little piece of it that pleasingly represents your view of the whole, and mount that sucker instead. Eat one prominent mouthful of one dish, then pass judgment on the whole feast. We all do it, and we have all condemned others for doing it, so no shame is to be doled out here. We shouldn't fool ourselves, however, that these little conquest rituals are enlightening, useful, or necessary.
The worst of it, on this board at least, comes with obsessive cable media coverage. As each issue is allotted one or two minutes of coverage per program followed by three or four minutes of "expert" discussion, acknowledging the sort of manifold complexity which requires extended discussion is antithetical to cable news (and opinion columns). So what to do? Hack off a little "representative" piece and ride that sucker. The media has done this most recently with prop 8 (ooh--blacks, who voted Democratic, screwed over gays!), and most famously with the 2000 race (the policy discussion is boring and they're basically the same, so let's consider personality!). Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd were so worthless and offensive during 2000 I always get a bit pissed when I see people praising them here. Same with Tim Russert. The reason? Their obsessive focus on trifles to push their subjective perspectives on big issues. Bush lying baldly about his tax plan is shelved in favor of Gore's troubling sighs. A deeply evil, organized, active promotion of bigotry from church leaders is shelved in favor of playing demographic pocket pool with statistics--casting light on the voters and their more passive, ignorant, torpid approval of bigotry.
Instead of being simply dismissed and ignored, these pleasing narratives can often dominate entire fora of DU. You have the concerned people, the people concerned about the concerned people, and the people concerned that those aforementioned concerned folk are posting too many threads on the subject (naturally adding yet more dead threads to the mix). We should stop running off these trivial cliffs along with the media, but we probably won't. I would like to consider their meaning more fully, however, and why the tone of such superficial analyses seems so suspect to many here.
I'm not clever enough to really express why this focus on the trivial, with the pretense of understanding the whole, offends. So here's a smarter guy who did it already. The whole essay is worthwhile, but this excerpt nails folks like Russert, Rich, and Dowd expertly. (How to Distinguish a Flatterer from a Friend, Plutarch):
As for a flatterer, however, in the first place he lets it be known that in his dealings with other people he is a hard man, impatient and uncompromising. He is stern with his servants, fiercely cracks down on his friends' and relatives' mistakes, and allows no one else to impress him or win his admiration, preferring to sneer at them; he is unforgiving and rude enough to provoke anger in other people. What he wants is to be known for his hatred of anything bad, and to be recognized as someone who would not readily relinquish his candour, or do or say anything ingratiating.
Sounds fine so far, no? But that supposed candor, like Russert's supposed "bulldog" interview style, is selective. It's there in some cases and woefully absent in others, all to promote some point of view:
In the second place, he pretends to be completely unaware and unacquainted with genuine, important flaws, although he ferociously springs on trivial, irrelevant oversights: he energetically and forcefully lambastes the culprit if he sees a tool out of place, a case of poor housekeeping, or someone not bothering to have a haircut or dressing carelessly or paying inadequate attention to a dog or a horse. He is totally unconcerned, however, if someone neglects his parents, ignores his children, humiliates his wife, sneers at his relatives and ruins his assets: these situations find him tongue-tied and helpless ... he is like a schoolteacher who scolds his pupil for his writing tablet and writing instrument, while ignoring his flawed and faulty language.
A flatterer, typically, has nothing to say about the actual speech of a ludicrously awful orator, but criticizes the sound of his voice and takes him to task for ruining his throat by drinking cold water; or if he is told to go through an atrocious script, he criticizes the roughness of the papyrus and the careless untidiness of the writing.
...
Flatterers, in short, bring candour to bear where there is no capacity for distress or pain--which is no different from using a scalpel to trim the hair and fingernails of someone with malignant growths and abscesses.
This may seem painfully obvious and therefore pedantic, but I think we all need to be reminded of this pitfall occasionally. These trivial "analyses" of controversial issues rarely enlighten, and are almost never useful or honest.
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