Liberals, conservatives, smears, and the inversion of reality

As Richard Cohen of the Washington Post sees it, when Sarah Palin said that being a mayor entails more responsibilities than being a community organizer, she was directing a “low blow” at Obama’s “strength,” and that this was an “outrageous” thing for her to do—worse, even, than a “mere smear.” Ramesh Ponnuru expresses his wonderment at Cohen’s silliness.

Question: if liberals lose their minds over a perfectly legitimate political riposte that was not a smear at all, how would they respond to a real smear? The thought occurs to me: maybe they wouldn’t mind it at all. I say this because the mission of liberalism is not to uphold and defend objective standards, but to subvert and destroy objective standards, because objective standards result in unequal outcomes. Therefore honestly condemning a genuine smear as a smear provides no payoff to liberals, but falsely attacking a perfectly legitimate comment as a smear is right up the liberals’ alley.

What then about the conservative’s absurd attacks today on Barack Obama for allegedly implying that Gov. Palin is a pig and making a “sexist” attack on women, when of course he intended no such thing? I think it shows that the “conservatives,” in abandoning conservative principle in response to the Palin selection, have become like the left: they no longer believe in truth, but in the assertion of their own will against the truth. Thus they now prohibit any questions about the natural differences between men and women as related to child care and career.

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In this connection, a female professor of literature once told me how the feminists in the academy promoted mediocre female writers, such as Alice Walker, while they ignored top notch female writers such as Emily Dickenson, and she wondered why this was so. I replied that the feminists’ purpose was not to advance genuine achievements by women, but to destroy the very idea of genuine achievement and thus assert their own will over objective reality. To teach a fine female writer because she’s fine would do nothing to advance the feminist and leftist rebellion against the order of existence.

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Jon W. writes:

I believe you’re wrong about BO’s thrust at Palin. I haven’t personally verified it, but my understanding is this. When BO uttered the lipstick on a pig line, the crowd “got it” as being directed at Palin. Tapes played on talk radio showed the crowd chanted or shouted “No pit bulls” or something to that effect immediately after BO made his lipstick remark.

LA replies:

His context was not Palin but some other topic. Lipstick on a pig is a common phrase, everyone uses it. He’s an idiot for having used it this week, when everyone’s been talking about Palin’s “pit bull with lipstick” comment and naturally “lipstick on a pig” would instantly be associated with Palin. So he’s incredibly gaffe prone (what happened to this man’s legendary smoothness?) and he walked right into it. At the same time, I think his intention was innocent.

LA continues:

I’ve now watched the YouTube video of Obama’s comment and it confirms what I just said. He was talking about economic police. Now it’s true that the moment he said, “lipstick on a pig,” the crowd screamed with delight because of course the comment made them think of Palin’s famous comment. And I think it’s probable that Obama was deliberately playing off the Palin comment. But that’s not the same as saying that she is a pig. And for Repubicans to go into overdrive over Obama’s supposed “sexist” attack on Palin demonstrates that Republicans are without principle. They will say anything, including making leftist-type charges of “sexism.”

Alan M. writes:

You write:

“What then about the conservative’s absurd attacks today on Barack Obama for allegedly implying that Gov. Palin is a pig and making a ‘sexist’ attack on women, when of course he intended no such thing?”

You are asserting a fact that cannot be known with certainty. The audience there would disagree with you by their reaction. Officemates of mine disagree with you by roughly 2:1. And the population is more liberal than conservative.

To the extent that they are being disingenuous, I would have to disagree with you, but it would appear that there is room to question his intent.

Thucydides writes:

The arguments about Obama’s remarks about lipstick on a pig are of course absurdist, but they are the norm in a mass democracy. The huge majority of voters are profoundly ignorant—one recent survey found fewer than 30 percent could state any difference between the two major parties. Only 40 percent know that we have branches of government, and can identify them. Roughly half belief Iraq launched the 9/11 attacks, in spite of having been told the contrary by public officials. Almost none can locate Iraq on the map.

Elections don’t turn on voters’ understanding of issues; they turn on who has the most likeable personality—who seems to be the “nice guy,” or someone with whom the voter would like associate. Successful campaigns create a negative picture of their opponents in the public mind.

Symbols become highly important. For example, the story about the American flags being discarded after the Democrat convention is treated by both sides as deadly serious, because it fixes in the voters’ minds their worries about Democrats being less than patriotic. Remember the story (completely false) about President Bush senior not understanding the supermarket scanner? This fixed in voters’ minds the idea of Bush as less than aware of the concerns of the typical voter.

We can deplore this reality, but I don’t think it is going to change.

Terry Morris writes:

You wrote:

The thought occurs to me: maybe they wouldn’t mind it at all. I say this because the mission of liberalism is not to uphold and defend objective standards, but to subvert and destroy objective standards, because objective standards result in unequal outcomes. Therefore honestly condemning a genuine smear as a smear provides no payoff to liberals, but falsely attacking a perfectly legitimate comment as a smear is right up the liberals’ alley.

That is excellent!

So when liberals attack legitimate criticisms as smears, what they’re essentially doing is trying to destroy legitimate criticisms. Once legitimate criticisms are destroyed by liberalism, then all that’s left are smears. Is that right?

LA replies:

Yes, exactly.

The aim of the left is transgression against the existing order of society, the natural order, the spiritual order, in the name of attaining some perfect equality and freedom. Of what value, then, is truth to leftists? To say, truthfully, “Here is something that exists, and here is a true statement about it,” involves a conformity of the individual mind to something that exists externally to it. Where is there transgression or rebellion in fitting one’s understanding to truth and speaking it? Where is the assertion of the will? Where is the payoff?

By contrast, smears involve transgression against truth, the assertion of will, the liberation and expansion of one’s ego rather than its limitation according to a truth external to itself.

I feel there is some larger truth contained within your statement, “Once legitimate criticisms are destroyed by liberalism, then all that’s left are smears,” but I haven’t worked it out yet.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 10, 2008 04:27 PM | Send