From my replies to comments today, one theme keeps being repeated:
Whether it is the word lie or admitting you are wrong on a point or a gentleman’s apology, it is critical that when you speak, you take what you say seriously and reserves the big ones for a single sentence.
If you are like National Review ( see “Peter Has One of Two Rules Right” below) and you don’t take your own pronouncements seriosuly, why should anybody else take you seriously?
This reminds me of the United States Senate as it USED to be.
The first time I saw the United States Senate in session was in the 1950s. My brother and I were up in the Senate Gallery.
What we first noticed about the Senate was how QUIET it was.
We both were impressed and we both knew why it was so quiet:
When one of those men spoke every word carried weight. They didn’t have to shout.
Now the Senate is just one set of politicians. They are always talking about Senate traditions and respect, but the meaning of these things has completely disappeared.
In The Partisan Dictionary I gave a definition that is relevant here:
“Manners, n, A formalized substitute for courtesy.”
“Manners” is a lot like the Cargo Cult (See “Mondo Cane” below. The idea is htat if you follow all the rules you see gentlement and ladies follow, you will be a lady or a gentlemen. If you follow the rules, you will be a gentleman or a lady.
So today’s senators tell us about Senate Traditions. They give examples of how they act formally the way earlier, real senators acted. They follow the rules, and they can give you examplesof how real senators used to act that way.
But manners cannot substitute for courtesy. And following the rules cannot substitute for the real traditions which today’s senator is incapable of understanding.
When the senators went up to vote, Strom Thurmond, who was a genuine segregationist, passed by Hubert Humphrey, the fanatical integrationists from Minnesota. Thurmond was our hero, Humphrey out ultimate villain.
As they went up to vote, Thurmond passed Humphrey. Thurmond patted Humphrey on the arm and Humphrey sort of tapped him back.
This was NOT hyprocrisy. As I said, I found out later that Thurmond genuinely despised everything Humphrey stood for and I am sure Humphrey believed in every word he was saying.
What they did wasnot for galleries. I was watching Strom very closely and that pat would have gotten him no votes in South Carolina.
Strom never showed the slightest friendliness to senators like Jacob Javits of New York.
He thought Humphrey was a damned fool but Humpphrey was an enemy he respected.
And vice-versa.
Nowadays a senator who heard about his might pat ALL his enemies on the arm to show he was like the old senators.
That little bit of mutural respect was rare and genuine.
Strom and Humphrey thought of each other as genuine senators. Strom thought of Javits as a hunk of trash from New York City.
Today’s senator would never understand this distinction. He thinks that if one gets the title “Senator” he is a senator. He thinks in terms of arm-patting rather than the attitude behind it.
Am I making myself sufficiently obscure?
#1 by Derek on 01/10/2006 - 11:01 pm
Obscure? Not at all. That is advice a simpleton like me can get.
What is the old adage? “Putting pearls on swine?” Sounds like Ted Kennedy or John Kerry are covered in them. Hell, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly too.
#2 by Derek on 01/11/2006 - 2:24 am
I should clarify: I meant pearls on swine as in these guys we have today dress the part…they can’t actually do it though.
#3 by Don on 01/11/2006 - 2:30 am
RE: “Am I making myself sufficiently obscure?”
One of the qualities I greatly admire in anyone, friend or foe, is sincerity. I hate to try and deal with people who are slippery and slimy and can’t be depended on. Sincere people may, of course, not be competent. If I am dealing with someone who is bidding to work on my house, I like to have confidence that they are both sincere and competent.
So how do we end up with the politicians we get most of the time? If we chose airline pilots the way we do political leaders, the planes would be falling out of the sky.
Control tower to flight 221. Both engines are on fire and your wings have been damaged by flying debris. No, a filibuster is not an option here.
#4 by LibAnon on 01/11/2006 - 2:56 am
“Am I making myself sufficiently obscure?”
Yes! One of the best things about your writing, Bob, is that it IS often obscure at first. But every new post always turns out to be connected beautifully with everything else you’ve said before, and discovering each new level of unity for myself is a real pleasure. It’s like climbing up a long mountain trail. It’s an effort, but it’s never long before I’m rewarded with new views. And although I realize that the spectacular views are a result of your work and not mine, it adds to the pleasure knowing that I had to do some work myself in order to see them.
It’s impossible to reduce your thinking to a system, Bob. In my opinion, however, there’s a central idea behind most of it: that we are responsible for the meaning of words. The meaning of words can be destroyed either by idolatry or by sacrilege. We commit idolatry when we worship a word itself instead of the reality behind it. We commit sacrilege when we use a word in vain, irrespective of reality, as when the word “Senator” was applied to Jacob Javits. When words are destroyed in this way, they become instruments used to destroy the real things for which they formerly stood. When that happens, “it’s time for a revolution, and nothing less than a revolution.”
Liberalism, in my opinion, was one of these words, both destroyed and made the instrument of destruction. Liberalism once meant science, secularism, freedom of speech, rights for women, the rule of law, etc. But over the course of time, these words became worshipped as real things themselves, and the reality behind them was forgotten. That reality, of course, was our race. Liberalism is the unique product of the white race, no less than blue eyes and blond hair. Every race has conservative societies, and the savage tribes are the most conservative of all. But only white people came up with liberalism, and it is only in white societies that it has ever thrived. But Fox News, the ringleader of the biggest cargo cult the world has ever seen, now affirms that the “rule of law” prevails whenever brown people wave purple forefingers at TV cameras.
#5 by CL on 01/11/2006 - 4:30 pm
“Liberalism, in my opinion, was one of these words, both destroyed and made the instrument of destruction. Liberalism once meant science, secularism, freedom of speech, rights for women, the rule of law, etc. But over the course of time, these words became worshipped as real things themselves, and the reality behind them was forgotten.”
It also came to mean its opposite, once “science” (the battered woman of nouns) became the new institutionalized religion. Same faces (or types, since we’re not eternal), same schtick, different label. Thus Massachusetts, etc.
Cargo cult. Great analogy.