sistermagpie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistermagpie) wrote2004-10-01 03:16 pm
sistermagpie) wrote2004-10-01 03:16 pm
Story vs. Story
So I watched this debate thingie last night, and believe it or not,
In lj we debate all the time, obviously, but I was really surprised last night about how rather than the debate being about two people having different interpretations of the same canon, it was more like two people telling different stories, with each one trying to get people to choose his own story.
Kerry's story was something you'd find in the military history section. It was the story of different countries, each with complex histories and many issues competing to decide what course of action they would take. It seemed like things like financing for a war, and battle strategies and diplomacy would be included. This is the kind of thing you get when you read history. It's a story the appeals to many people who like a complicated narrative where one thing has many different effects that you need to understand the history of the countries and peoples involved to truly understand. In this world (which I should point out is the real one) moral is only one factor in who wins a war. A more important factor would be actual strategy, what's actually going on.
Then you had Bush, who had a much simpler story. In fact, I could almost see the illustration it would get in the Book of Virtues. In his story America was more personified like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress (in the illustration he'd probably be a plucky boy in a striped tee-shirt standing up to a playground full of bullies much larger than he is, all wearing stereotypically ethnic clothing--the turbaned Arab, the Frenchman in the beret, etc.). Winning the war did not depend on anything but persevering and being strong. It made me feel like I was just supposed to sort of plant my feet on the floor and look defiant--this would help. The important thing here is that we all know how that story ends. That story always ends with the little hero triumphing because he's the hero and stouthearted and true.
One of the strangest moments, for instance, was when Kerry pointed out that Osama bin Laden used the war in Iraq to recruit new followers. One would think anyone supposedly engaged in a "War on Terra" would consider this an important thing to address since it goes directly to the heart of what the war's about, which is giving us fewer terrorists. Bush's response was, paraphrased, "Osama bin Laden doesn't dictate when America can defend herself." Um, what? That's quite a leap there. But an understandable one, because Bush's story really has no room for what Kerry has just described. What it does have room for is more people who are NOT THE BOSS OF AMERICA!
For me, though, the final bit of meta-bizarreness was on The Daily Show afterwards, where Jon Stewart was talking to different people, including R. Guiliani. Guiliani dutifully championed Bush's picturebook story, saying Kerry "lectured" while Bush "talked" to the audience. Far more strangely, though, when pressed by a Jon Stewart's gentle reminder that there were no WMDs in Iraq he responded that Hussein himself was a weapon of mass destruction.
Again: Saddam himself was a weapon of mass destruction. Um, unless he's swallowed a lot of plutonium recently, that would be a metaphor. So metaphors are now justification for war. That's some pretty crazy stretching of language there. Strange coming from an admistration who insist that applying the word "marriage" to consenting adult couples of the same sex would lead to dogs marrying can-openers within a week.
In lj we debate all the time, obviously, but I was really surprised last night about how rather than the debate being about two people having different interpretations of the same canon, it was more like two people telling different stories, with each one trying to get people to choose his own story.
Kerry's story was something you'd find in the military history section. It was the story of different countries, each with complex histories and many issues competing to decide what course of action they would take. It seemed like things like financing for a war, and battle strategies and diplomacy would be included. This is the kind of thing you get when you read history. It's a story the appeals to many people who like a complicated narrative where one thing has many different effects that you need to understand the history of the countries and peoples involved to truly understand. In this world (which I should point out is the real one) moral is only one factor in who wins a war. A more important factor would be actual strategy, what's actually going on.
Then you had Bush, who had a much simpler story. In fact, I could almost see the illustration it would get in the Book of Virtues. In his story America was more personified like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress (in the illustration he'd probably be a plucky boy in a striped tee-shirt standing up to a playground full of bullies much larger than he is, all wearing stereotypically ethnic clothing--the turbaned Arab, the Frenchman in the beret, etc.). Winning the war did not depend on anything but persevering and being strong. It made me feel like I was just supposed to sort of plant my feet on the floor and look defiant--this would help. The important thing here is that we all know how that story ends. That story always ends with the little hero triumphing because he's the hero and stouthearted and true.
One of the strangest moments, for instance, was when Kerry pointed out that Osama bin Laden used the war in Iraq to recruit new followers. One would think anyone supposedly engaged in a "War on Terra" would consider this an important thing to address since it goes directly to the heart of what the war's about, which is giving us fewer terrorists. Bush's response was, paraphrased, "Osama bin Laden doesn't dictate when America can defend herself." Um, what? That's quite a leap there. But an understandable one, because Bush's story really has no room for what Kerry has just described. What it does have room for is more people who are NOT THE BOSS OF AMERICA!
For me, though, the final bit of meta-bizarreness was on The Daily Show afterwards, where Jon Stewart was talking to different people, including R. Guiliani. Guiliani dutifully championed Bush's picturebook story, saying Kerry "lectured" while Bush "talked" to the audience. Far more strangely, though, when pressed by a Jon Stewart's gentle reminder that there were no WMDs in Iraq he responded that Hussein himself was a weapon of mass destruction.
Again: Saddam himself was a weapon of mass destruction. Um, unless he's swallowed a lot of plutonium recently, that would be a metaphor. So metaphors are now justification for war. That's some pretty crazy stretching of language there. Strange coming from an admistration who insist that applying the word "marriage" to consenting adult couples of the same sex would lead to dogs marrying can-openers within a week.
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Now I'm sorry I missed the debate... I'll definitely have to watch the next one. Was this debate limited to the "War on Terror", or were there other subjects included as well?
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Btw, I so love your icon. Poor Charlie!
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Someone else made the icon for me... *sighs at thought of going back through community to find person's alias*
Terror... boo. Can't we, like, have a three-candidate debate so Nader can get a word in edgewise, just to stir things up?
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rofl!!!
Imagining you doing this almost makes having to catch any glimpse of that stupid debate worth it ~:)))
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...I seem to have some weird New Yorker loyalty to him -.-
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I have a friend who said there was a point around then when she wanted to lick his ear. That's how cool he was.
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I can see plenty of Slytherin types in that party as well, but yeah, the idea that Gryffindor=Anarchists by definition is silly. It's more like you can be anything but it comes out a different way.
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I think if there's any progressist thought of the pacifist or rationalist or even anarchist kind it's more likely to come from the Ravenclaws or the Hufflepuffs.
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Sorry if I sound offensive, I don't mean it as a personal insult to you. Just my feeling towards the big bad bullies across the water.
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I just hope there are enough of you (you meant personal this time) to make a change.
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I'm sorry, I simply can't pick the most absurd part to comment on. My mind refuses to process that this kind of 'discourse' is occuring, and that Bush isn't run out of the White House with pitchforks.
Funny, I watched Farenheit 911 yesterday, and in some of the footage from protesters at Bush's inauguration, one guy was holding a sign saying 'God help us all'. Not religious, but man, do I ever agree with the sentiment. I feel bad for you guys if you get for more years of that psychotic chimp, but I feel even worse for the rest of the world.
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It's weird to think you're living in a country during a time that history will probably look back at and say, "But I don't get it? Why didn't somebody do something? How could they fall for that?"