Art is Not Polite

The release of Django Unchained has seen a flurry of debate―not so much about the qualities of the film itself, but an extended argument about whether Quentin Tarantino, a white man, should have made a hyper-violent slave narrative in the first place. But Tarantino’s critics are really only revealing themselves to be the worst sort of philistines.

The arguments against Django typically center on one of two things. One is the (supposed) arrogance demonstrated by a white man publicly imagining the history of black oppression in America. Spike Lee is the most notable critic here, claiming that he refuses to see the movie because Tarantino’s role as writer is an affront to a very real and very much still living crime. The second, related point is that the film makes heavy use of a certain slur. As the writer of the script, Tarantino’s whiteness is again called into question, and Django’s racist slave-owners begin to blend with their creator. There is a kind of insensitivity to public discourse on race that Tarantino has ignored, offending many.

The problem here is that neither of these criticisms are really about the film. Take the second of the arguments against Django: what upsets people is not that the n-word is said in the film, but that Tarantino decided it would be said. It’s not that the word is portrayed positively or that it’s heavy-handed or that it’s use is trite―it’s that Tarantino shouldn’t have written it in the first place.

Now, there’s a reason I’m writing ‘n-word’ instead of that phrase’s referent, and it’s because in a conversation (or whatever conversation-like form this article entails), my use of the word carries with it vast cultural power likely to offend and obscure whatever point I’m capable of making. The demands of social correctness are necessary here for any discourse to exist. But Tarantino isn’t having a conversation: he’s making a film. He’s making a work of art. Art, if it is to be art, cannot be polite. It cannot be judged on those grounds. For Tarantino to make the film, he must write the n-word into his scripts, and to fault him for that is just as disingenuous as it was absurd to censor the word from Huckleberry Finn.

Of course, the details of Tarantino’s scripting are irrelevant if he never should have made the movie at all, and so the second argument collapses into the first and we end up with Lee’s position: given the issues involved, it simply isn’t right, or maybe even possible, for Tarantino to make Django Unchained. It’s a kind of artwork he is unable to make because the issue of slavery is so closely tied to race that in making the film, he is further aggravating racial relations in a negative way at best, and at worst continuing the attack on black culture by white culture.

But that position assumes far too much. The history of slavery (and, for that matter, of the Mexican-American War, the abuse of Chinese workers on the transcontinental railroad, the internment of Japanese-Americans, the genocide of the Native Americans...) is something that must be reckoned with by all races. As a white man, and especially a Southerner, I have inherited the crimes of my ancestors. As an American living in a time when racial boundaries are still well-defined and racism is still a visible problem, I have to confront the oppression perpetrated against blacks as well. Art is perhaps the form to do so. Condemning Tarantino for addressing the issue at all implicitly assumes that slavery is only a black issue. It silences whites from engaging with the evil woven in American history.

None of this is to say that Django is a good film. Nor am I saying that Django has a beneficial contribution to race problems in America. Perhaps his trademarked style (and penchant for re-writing history) may in fact be problematic. Perhaps it does attempt to speak for blacks or further racism in some way. But if that’s true, it’s because of the specifically cinematic qualities of the film, because of its execution, style, and insight. To criticize Tarantino for having made the film at all is cowardice of the worst kind because it doesn’t actually allow one to make these criticisms. Instead, it refuses the insights a piece of art could provide by turning away. It simply accepts the status quo.

The Problem of Armageddon-Speak

Since the election, too many people have been speaking about Obama's reelection as a profound victory that will force the American right to the center. But that's because so many discuss today's political battles as apocalyptic confrontations. In an article for the New Internationalist, I analyze why such assumptions are a problem. Check it out here.

Obama's Gambit

It didn't take long after networks began calling the election last night for the bitter responses to start flooding airwaves and Twitter feeds nationwide. Donald Trump was an especially dark lowlight, claiming  "We should march on Washington and stop this tragedy." (Prior to election ranting, he was inexplicably hating on Richard Belzer which may be enough of a reason to ignore Trump if, you know, we didn't have so many already.) My own Facebook newsfeed, like many, was full of spite and anger. 

But the truly confounding thing was not the fact of a backlash, but the claims being made in it: Our nation is divided and in peril, and Obama should be blamed for winning an election that so many didn't want him to win. Or the more convulted version: Obama and Obama alone--without the slightest nod to the extremist bent of the Tea Party--is the source of all the division that made the election so tense. His attack ads were the instigation, apparently, of the two-party system's binary choice matrix.

Obama and Romney both gave credence to the claims, calling for bipartisanship in their respective speeches. Headlines starting popping up immediately pointing to the difficult work Obama faces in bridging the divide. However, Romney's comments were obvious platitudes forced upon him in the gracious loser role and Obama's were required given that there was such a backlash. But given the content--that Obama is the Great Divider driving the country to extremist ruin--and the timing--shortly after a myriad of horrifyingly misogynist comments from congressional candidates and a celebration of non-negotiation--is it any wonder that all talk of "reaching across the aisle" is complete and utter bullshit?

But here's the importan point: for Obama, it should be bullshit.

During his speech, Obama put the moment plainly: "Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual." The statement is ironic given that so many pundits summarized the election by saying that nothing has changed, that we continue on as we did last week. Perhaps, if we're unlucky, they're right. But just maybe Obama meant those words. And just maybe the stage is set for action--not farcical and empty "bipartisanship" that amounts to placating the worst trends in American politics, but legitimate governance.

But Obama can only act if he's willing to take a stance on progressive policies and force them through. If that's politicking, fine. But it can't be the meek response that he took during his first term, nor the meek response the right is hoping to force him into now. If he's serious about confronting immigration, the fiscal cliff, and the environment, he can't worry about appealing to the voters who condemn him as an ideologue after offering a remarkably spending-cut-happy deficit plan only to see the right leave the table.

In an ironic twist, the only way to solve the deadlock and unite the country is to double down on the plans the right hates most--not because their opinions don't matter, but because those are the plans most needed, and only with their success will America begin to move forward. Lincoln saved the Union by refusing to give in to the worst in the nation. Obama must do the same. Whatever courting of the right must be done to get actual programs in place should be done, but there should never be a question about the goal.

The need to appeal to swing voters is a petty excuse for not taking on the important issues, but even that meager excuse is gone now. Today, Obama has the chance to provide leadership, to provide action to an ailing nation. But first he must sacrifice all hopes of being well-liked. He must recognize that there is a cost. We need an unrelenting president. We need a strong dose of conviction. 

An Obama freed from a reelection campaign has the chance to do something extraordinary. But first he must make the gambit.

A Wide Lens (And Wide Eyes) on the 2012 Election

Given the constant stream of speeches, continual criticism from pundits, and influx of numbers--all those 5 trillions and 787 billions--it’s easy to get lost in the details of the presidential election, caught up in the minutiae of who said what when. But I’d like to take a minute to remember just exactly how fucking weird this whole thing has been, big-picture wise.

In 1997, 191 nations--but not the US--signed the Kyoto Protocol, agreeing to limit greenhouse emissions to stave off climate change. Even China agreed, closing inefficient coal-fired plants for newer, cleaner technologies. Fifteen years later, here we are with two presidential candidates chest-bumping like frat boys over who loves coal more. Half-hearted and scientifically questionable support for “clean” coal aside, the only difference in the stance is that one of those guys (Barack, if you were unaware) thinks wind and natural gas are cool too. The main argument on the environmental front is about whether the increase in oil production over the past four years came on private or public land. Which is to say, there isn’t an environmental argument at all, really, despite the fact that it’s a unbelievably huge issue in every other developed nation.

And then there’s foreign policy. Now, I’m well aware that this country has a long, long history of devastating developing nations with little regard for democratic principles. But we’ve often done so with at least the pretense, however shoddy, of making new nations safe for democracy. That was at least one justification for the Iraq War, after all. But now? Any pretend concern for all the fledgling democracies born in the Arab Spring? Not a drop. Now it’s all about who’s tougher, with Romney working that No Apology angle, obsessing over how often Obama uses the phrase “terrorist attack” and trying his hardest to piss off Putin while Obama’s busy dropping bombs from remote controlled planes all over Pakistan, borders and sovereignty be damned. Diplomacy and courtship of new allies is pretty much out the window.

And then there’s the obvious one. Really, the best one. On the surface it’s the guy who wants socialized medicine against the guy who doesn’t. But then there’s that 80’s goofball comedy twist where the guy who doesn’t want it created the plan that’s the very basis for one the guy who does put in place that the guy who doesn’t now says he’ll repeal as soon as possible. Except now the guy who doesn’t want it says he’s going to keep certain parts of the plan...and then his campaign says he didn’t really mean that. But we’re not done yet, because then the guy who doesn’t want it starts attacking the guy who does for cutting a bunch of money from a key part of the whole plan--Medicare--even though the guy who doesn’t’s buddy made the same cuts. And all this while the guy who doesn’t want it is still claiming to be the guy who doesn’t want it, despite all those times where he seems to be saying he totally does want it.

But let’s sum it up this way: Obama’s campaign strategy--the one he bought with a billion dollars--is to say, repeatedly, “You should trust that my opponent will do what he says he’s going to do.” Obama’s used that line in stump speeches, town halls, and the debates. Obviously, his point is that you should trust the hyper-conservative Mitt that’s promising austerity, not the one from his campaign against Ted Kennedy or from his time as governor of the bluest blue state there ever was.

Given Mittens’ remarkable ability to change his position, it probably is necessary to try to pin the man down on something, and point out the more horrifying aspects of his various platforms. (In other words, it's obvious that conservative Mitt is the real Mitt.) But given all the talk surrounding this election--all those claims that it’s an election about two supposedly incompatible views of government, a choice between two disparate possible futures for the nation, an event showing the deep divisions in our hyper-partisan country--isn’t it strange (and sort of hilarious) that one of the candidates has to try so hard to remind everybody that their platforms are different?

The Candy Crowley Effect

If you watched the second presidential debate on Tuesday, you knew you’d be reading about moderator Candy Crowley today. But in addition to the partisan ammunition she provided, Crowley’s effort to control the debate highlighted an important problem with how we’re viewing this election.

But first it’s worth looking at what exactly happened to infuriate conservative critics (even leading Rush Limbaugh to pun that Crowley committed “an act of journalistic terror”). The conflict arose during a question on Libya, Mr. Romney criticizing President Obama’s response to the Benghazi attacks and alleged refusal to admit it was a terrorist strike:

ROMNEY: I — I think interesting the president just said something which — which is that on the day after the attack he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror.

OBAMA: That’s what I said.

ROMNEY: You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack, it was an act of terror.

It was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you’re saying?

OBAMA: Please proceed governor.

ROMNEY: I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.

OBAMA: Get the transcript.

Well, Crowley did just that. Or tried to:

CROWLEY: It — it — it — he did in fact, sir. So let me — let me call it an act of terror…

OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder, Candy?

CROWLEY: He — he did call it an act of terror.

Now, Obama’s actual Rose Garden Statement was that “no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation....” In other words, he does use the phrase “acts of terror” and implies the Benghazi attack was just that. But Romney is correct that Obama did not directly label the incident as a terroristic attack, focusing instead on the role of ongoing protests over an anti-Islam movie.

So perhaps the right wing pundits have reason to be angry with Crowley for making a definitive imposition against Romney. Except she didn’t do that at all--she continued:

CROWLEY: It did as well take — it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that.

ROMNEY: This — the administration — the administration indicated this was a reaction to a video and was a spontaneous reaction.

CROWLEY: It did.

Crowley pointed out the obfuscation from both sides, bookended the petty argument over word choice, and forced the event onward. In other words, she moderated. 

The question asked--a question Obama very pointedly did not answer--was why a request for heightened embassy security was denied by the state department. Of course, Paul Ryan’s budget called for cuts to that security as well, so Romney didn’t rush into the thicket either. Since neither candidate wanted to answer the question at hand and risk any subtleties, they focused on the petty matter of a phrase, ignoring what that phrase purported to show. Crowley simply put an end to it by highlighting the essence of both candidate’s position while forcing them to stop arguing past each other.

Why, then, are conservative pundits so up in arms? The same reason liberal pundits, and the crowd at the debate, cheered so mightily at the first half of Crowley’s statement (“he did in fact, sir”). The issues at hand now are who looked best, which candidate is a better leader, who came off as more presidential. The fact that Romney was obviously knocked off-kilter at the moment ensures Obama is the answer to all those questions.

But, that one candidate faltered in the moment and the other didn’t is irrelevant to whether or not Crowley acted properly: those angered with Crowley for aiding Obama are missing the exact same point as those praising her for fact-checking Romney. What both should pay more attention to is whether their candidates are actually answering the questions asked them.

Crowley’s credit comes not from hampering Romney, because that wasn’t actually the essence of her interjection. She deserves thanks for doing exactly what Jim Lehrer didn’t in the first debate: attempting to force the candidates away from their stump speeches and focusing them on the actual issues that voters are asking about. That happened far too little last night--again, note that the original question was never answered by either Obama nor Romney--but this exchange was the one where Crowley did the most to ensure an informative debate.

Conflating Evil

Recently I’ve been particularly scornful of a certain trend in political discourse that necessitates finding a singular entity blamable for whatever issue the speaker is discussing. The problem isn’t simple scapegoating, but rather the tenuous philosophical underpinnings of a politics that does not allow for a more complex understanding of these deeply complex social issues. (See my post from September 28th for more detail.) I’ve come to realize that this problem goes much deeper than I was originally imagining it to, even coming to light in many radical leftwing politics that make many of the same criticisms of mainstream politics. I’d like to outline that problem.

First, consider for a moment the typical charge made against the Democratic party (or Parliamentarism as a whole) by the far left: in condemning the right wing as the source of all inequalities and injustices, they have overlooked their own role in propagating the ongoing, and unjust, social structure. Their moralizing against the right is a false moralizing serving merely to establish a rhetorical and psychological high ground that they then leverage for power. Their policy plans are far more palatable, but never actually aim at creating the “fair” society they claim to desire. For instance, consider the intense racism Blacks fought when they moved North after the Civil War, or the increase in power for the wealthiest Americans that grew out of the New Deal, or the continuing marginalization of immigrants and the poor. In short, the far left rejects the moralization of politics, aiming instead for a radical focus on social structures that, in descriptive language, necessitates dramatic shifts.

The problem, then, is that the far left still contains an implicit moralizing of politics. That is not to say that politics has been reduced to moral claims--as is true of mainstream politics and so-called Third Way theories. As just stated, the radical militant thinkers, such as Žižek and Badiou, that I take issue with here target that precise misunderstanding. Rather, their version of the problem is having allowed the same logical structure of moralistic thought, though without the specific moral language, to still hold within politics: the crimes of a situation are still ascribable to a specific entity. They have done away with blaming Morgan Stanley or, more vaguely, “Wall Street”, for the failures of our society, but they still ensure that, even more vaguely, Capitalism can be blamed.

In other words, they target the social structure itself--racist, misogynist, or classist. Such has been the impetus behind the last five decades of leftist politics, after all. However, in blaming Capitalism, as a system, for inequality, they are tacitly assuming that a social structure is the kind of thing that can be blamed. Though their claims now lack the ostensible moral values--you should have done otherwise, you ought not to have done that, you are being selfish--they still contain a logical structure that is specifically moral, leading them to justify policies or even violence on the fact that the Capitalist system must be fought. They have made their position far more complex, but in the anti-moral stance they have maintained lies, ironically, a moral structure.

For example, the recent glorification on the left of the Jacobins and the Terror of the French Revolution aims to distance the far left’s radical structural focus from the middle left’s empty moralizing. And yet the defenses of the Saint-Just and Robespierre always come down to an implicitly moral justification: the evils of pre-revolutionary France justify action against the institutions bolstering that system. In essence, moral blame is ascribed to the unjust system which is then attributed to the individual parts of that system. Though these arguments are mostly made without moral language and purport to be a-moral, they maintain the same form as the middle-left’s problematic thought, only going a step higher.

This philosophical difficulty is merely the political iteration of a Heideggerian logic. In Being and Time, Heidegger investigates the nature of being as such, going to great pains to explain how being as such--implying no specific way of being, mode of being, qualities, categories, etc.--is so ubiquitous that it is nearly impossible to discuss it. The finer points of Heidegger’s ontology are unimportant here, but there is a particular difficulty he points to in an interpretation of his work that is telling, offering an alternative to this false moral structure of politics.

Heidegger claims that the nature of being (being as such) manifests itself in humans (whom he calls Dasein) as a pure possibility. We are able to continually question our own beings, deciding upon particular manifestations of that being: in his words, our being is to have being at issue. However, the possibility of questioning is continually closed off. In modern times, that is often a result of our sociality--opinions of society at large impose themselves upon us, making it difficult (or even impossible) to continue to question the nature of our being or decide upon how we will manifest that being. To put it simply, our lives are determined for us. Heidegger refers to this phenomena as the “idle talk” of “the They.”

Those very terms--idle talk and the They--sound moral, but Heidegger insists they aren’t. He’s only being half-honest. Being and Time makes two simultaneous claims that amount to a kind of formal ethics. The first claim is that idle talk and the They are naturally arising. They are themselves essential parts of our being and thus cannot be a moral issue. It’s just a fact about human lives, like death and the need for oxygen. On the other hand, the second claim is that often, throughout the entire history of philosophy, those phenomena have been embraced, doubling their ill effect. To do so is an ethical failing. Humans are faced with a steep slope that ensures the difficulty Heidegger is concerned with and cannot be blamed for that. Yet to accept that slope and not continually attempt to combat the difficulty anyway is something blamable. Thus, Heidegger’s formal ethics are, in a way, non-moral: they outline where moral claims have validity, but ensure that some aspect of the very same issues cannot have blame ascribed to them. (For those interested, I wrote longer papers on this very issue. They can be found here and here.)

That is the very thought necessary in politics today. We must recognize that certain social structures are naturally arising, and cannot have claims legitimately made about them that adopt any semblance of morality--even its bare structure. Yet that does not justify those structures. We must still combat them, reaching for equality and understanding the absolute root of politics without any moral logic.

True Radicalism

The Economist published an article on October 13 titled “True Progressivism” in which they called for a radical centrist approach to combating inequality, blaming the Left for merely proposing higher taxes, the Right for thinking only of shrinking government rather than making it efficient, teachers’ unions for limiting social mobility, obscurant government monopolies for their corporate interests, and social spending that benefits the wealthy far more than than needy poor. Their underlying idea is that our current political climate has created a false choice between policy programs that doesn’t address the essential question, forgoing the possibility of progress.

But while The Economist’s position is a welcome one, its radical centrism is not radical enough. When faced with an unsavory binary choice, one should look to change the landscape behind it to create new options. The Economist, however, is looking to the wrong choice.

Their proposed solution consists in policy proposals that adjust government efforts at tax reform and economic stimulus. But while many of these proposals are beneficially novel--though I can’t back them in condemning teachers’ unions full stop, nor in their opposition to “distortionary” labor laws--they still assume that our only option is to create state policies that will solve inequality. For all their innovation, The Economist is still depending on the state as it existed in the 20th century.

The fact of the matter is that the state cannot control the world as it once did. The economy has become unmistakably global, as everyone knows. But it is only now that the disjunction between state enforcement of economic policy and global economic actors has reached the point of absurdity. The lack of power within the European nations over the still-growing Euro-zone crisis has become central to the problem, the sheer fact of an inter-national currency and a powerful inter-national central bank (the ECB) making important decisions fueling the difficulties. Legal oddities show themselves as Shell, a Dutch company, is tried in the Netherlands for crimes in Africa. The UN has long been known to be ineffective in the most necessary moments with its non-binding resolutions and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is now pleading emptily as war rages in Syria. But these conflicts have taken new life as non-state actors lead the charge--Ansar al-Sharia killed American diplomats in Libya, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas have entered political roles while maintaining influence across borders, the World Bank and the IMF exert influence wherever possible. The heavy hand of government is increasingly ineffective as new kinds of actors enter the scene, the old borders limiting state options, but not new problems.

Of course, these questions are not simply political--they are also deeply philosophical. The Industrial Revolution, notably the invention of the steam engine, changed the very makeup of human experience as it opened up the possibility, for the very first time, of truly national and even global lives, the facts of time and space becoming far less imposing. Further innovation in air travel and digital communication has grown that power exponentially. The limits, motivations, and crucial needs that defined humans at the outset of the modern state have shifted. The nature of human existence is different than it was in 1900 or even 1950--not in its essential features, no, but in the way they become manifest in social and political actions.

Why, then, does The Economist assume that inequality must be addressed by state policies? Why is it assumed, as they claim, that some degree of inequality is needed to spur innovation? Even if such a claim was true before, the nature of social interaction has changed dramatically, and thus the drives behind those interactions with them. In The Economist’s attempt to affect change, it has assumed a static human nature--a human nature that we have watched change for decades. The sheer fact of these new global actors and non-state networks alone has the potential to create novel bonds that already spur innovation.

Which is, after all, the point. We must innovate--but like any true innovators, we must take stock of the needs apparent now. Those needs are dependent upon shifting global dynamics that are largely centered outside the state. Our solutions must follow suit. We can no longer condemn capitalism as the exploitation of the factory because the factory is no longer the center of our lives. We can no longer look to the enlightened masses for a solution because the masses have been reborn in spontaneous, interconnected crowds--crowds who are often ignorant because of an overabundance of information. Old methods--state programs, command directives, official sources--have lost their power. We must rethink our problems in the terms of the new century.

As the facts of social bonds change, so does the relation between equality and growth. Our choice is no longer between capitalism and communism--both are dead.* Obviously government will continue--and should continue--to play a large role in human endeavors, but it will not be the same role it held last century. Any ‘true progressivism’, to hold any sway in the long-term, must be sensitive to these facts. We must rethink politics at its very root.

*Okay, obviously capitalism isn’t dead, nor even really dying. But capitalism is only living on because it is killing off state capitalism. It's transferring power out of state institutions and into corporations and other private actors. If anything, capitalism survives as an economic system because it’s been better able to adapt to fracturing geopolitical actors than communism--a pure state theory. But how will domestic political structures take shape with increasingly global economic actors? That is what staunch right-wing state capitalists can’t sufficiently answer.