8.14.2008

WHAT WE LEARN FROM CHOMSKY v. BUCKLEY

a LEFT hook
RIGHT to the face


The 1969 televised spectacle of debacle between Messrs. William F. Buckley and Noam Chomsky is widely available on the various free viewing “tubes” of the World Web. Mr. Buckley is a titan of neo-conservative punditry whose fabulously resonant simpering and hyper-articulate ejaculations helped shape a generation on the Right wing of American politics. His formidable opponent, Mr. Chomsky, holds a similar status on the Left and is renown for his bewilderingly competent grasp of the published facts and his arch-rational speaking style.

Left vs. Right. Morality vs. Ethics. The Intellectual Consensus of the Culture vs. the Critical Consensus of the International Arena.

This video is little gem whose flashiest facet is the unexpectedly REAL threat that Mr. Buckley makes re: punching Mr. Chomsky right in the face. Both men are used to dominating conversations, eluding questions, and talking over other people while maintaining a pose of righteous reasonableness. The tension runs high and we can delight in their nearly domestic refusal to fully listen to each other's comments. In some sense they cease to be mere historical men and become the avatars of twin tendencies within the cultural field of modern democratic capitalism, the White & Red dragons of myth... or the White & Red wings of one dragon.

When their frustration mutually peaks we see that Mr. Chomsky struggles to get “on top” of his anger and tries to confess it within the stream of social discourse. Mr. Buckley, on the other hand, embodies his rage in a quick flash that betrays more than a little of the narcissistic poseur. One climbs up out out his uncomfortable feelings, heading for the mind, while the other descends into physicality and general theatrics. Is this a key to the Left/Right split in social dynamics? It is the little known position of the Neo-Reichians that Conservative Emotional Pathology maintains a vital but perverted connection to the bodily core – the “gut” -- while the Liberal Emotional Pathology orbits up the surface of the body and replaces the gut with the mind. These are hardly firm divisions but they are endlessly suggestive... and fit very nicely with theories like the following:

Conservatives are interiorists, locating the source of social problems within the feelings, beliefs and choices of individuals while Liberals are exteriorists who locate the trouble in the actual conditions, materials and habits of the society.

(And if you are too frail for general categorizations please insert “tends to” wherever you like...)

Another gorgeous facet of the discussions dazzles out when they come upon the question of whether Imperialism totally or only partially characterizes any given political regime. Mr. Buckley leaps upon this point, calling it a clear “observable” difference. Mr. Chomsky blurts out a correction, saying it obviously a “conceptual” distinction. Each is citing his own medium when he tries to assert his message.

Even more wonderful! Mr. Chomsky denounces hypocrisy among rapacious and idealistic States... but he does admit “some exceptions.” Mr. Buckley naturally assumes this as a reference to the class of morally laudable exceptions who can truly “walk their talk.” He is quickly corrected by Mr. Chomsky who, it turns out, meant only to say that a few Nations are entirely rapacious and do not even bother with the rhetoric of virtue.

Our Leftist believes that the hidden, problematic motives in rational societies are revealed by a negative sub-class of pure maniacs. Our (curiously effeminate) Rightist assumes that a positive sub-class must be elevated over the obviously problematic nature of society. The former is illuminating the difficulties in the actual implementation of ethical agendas, while the latter is highlighting the ideals that must be incorporated at the site of the social dilemma being considered. I read these as complementary assignments, mutual functions – the healthy Left and Right wings of the same bird.

One group is built to locate the precise site of the antagonism by raising a flag of cultural ideals above this pit. It does this intuitively, by feeling out its own refined responses and filtering them through the matrix of traditionally-established popular concepts. In my mind the Right is the diagnostician and the Left is the giver of prescriptions. An adequate strategy cannot be produced by gut-feeling and idealism since, it is endless revealed through history, the best intentions lead straight to Hell. A decent program for action must bypass the specific cultural ideals and harness all the available data in an manner that is orchestrated by the ethical operating-instructions for beneficial engagements with Others.

Conservatives are not built for analysis or strategic implementation. Progressive Social-Liberals are not built to identify the actual sources of trouble.

We need Liberal Solutions to Conservative Problems. Not a third-way fusion but a re-engagement of the natural sociological function which both parties are already attempting to perform.

Among, say, the abortions, we might look to the Right to locate the fundamental question and mark it with an imperative ideal. So "We must not kill babies!" is read as meaning that the question of babyhood is THE essential site of the dilemma which assails us its pressurized moral potency. Yet the destruction, banning, etc. of abortion clinics is a feeble and barbaric solution. The Right is not solution oriented. There are too many ambiguities and troubling feelings among the facts upon which good, ethical strategy must be based -- they are too sensitive for that. They would rather reject the dissonance by turning it over to a God, Law or the motives of Heathens. The trend to seek solutions in ancient myth, gossip and popular emotionalism is quite obviously an abdecation of Implementation.

Or consider the right-wing instinct toward social hierarchy -- a fine idea, except... that conservative authoritarians do not occupy the upper levels.

The trend to It must be left to Liberals to make the fine distinctions between a mere fetal mass and a functional, anthropomorphic utero-person... taking their cue from the general (but demystified) Conservative estimation, marked by an absolute/ideal flag. Without such guidance, the Progressive sentiments may simply produce a suffocating mass of rules against offensiveness, set against a backdrop of paralyzing relativism.

In the matter of having a Left and Right hand we would be complete fools to fuse them, to cut one off, to deny their difference or to take turns – switching every four or eight years.

Our “permissive culture” is organically sensed by the Conservative as a problem of the absence of shared disciplinary virtues. When they propose virtues that are found in dusty tomes from ancient lands which they themselves pervert and deny in their “unwatched private spaces” we know simply that they are not in the business of providing those disciplinary virtues. The source of practical virtues must come from those variation-tolerating, fact-admitting, self-critical Liberal Progressives.

The last beautiful bit to mention is that Chomsky slips his tongue and refers to “The Greeks” simply as “Greek” -- mistaking the people for their language-category. Exquisite!

8.08.2008

What the heck does "uber-dubious" mean?

WHAT THE HECK DOES “UBERDUBIOUS” MEAN

I coined this term to describe an increasingly common event in literary & dramatic structure, “a state of extreme cahoots betwixt the narrative and its own contents in which is attempted a doubling of sublime mistrust.” Uber (ultra) dubious material is designed to enhance the direct experience of the mutual core that is shared between faith & mistrust. It violates the categories of belief and disbelief and thus immediately displays their common functioning principle.

It is this sort of function that motivates human societies in the collective-ideological dimension of their being. It is generally invisible, concealed by its subtlety when in juxtaposition with crude stories & representational suggestions – such as comprise the obvious bulk of any communicative work. Only by short-circuiting our messages, in a skillful manner, can we stare directly into this other dimension at which site is manufactured the un-proclaimed operating instructions for social beings.

One powerful way to gain such access is through the experience of harmlessly suspected mistrust. Think of the feelings and subliminal ideation that occurs in the viewer when Rod Serling suddently steps from behind a door and explains that the story you are watching is contained within a weird, distorted semantic field he names THE TWILIGHT ZONE. It isn't dangerous, but still – what the heck is he up to??? This is normal pleasant distrust. We experience it when we watch a kitten or a puppy being obvious in their attempt to sneak up on us and pounce! Whenever Calvin, from Watterson's CALVIN & HOBBES, approach the door of his home he is seized by the ordinary emotion of playful yet ominous suspicion. Already this experience draws us intimately towards the screen of deeper sub-symbolic exchanges – but for many this is a damnably elusive pursuit and so attempts are made to amplify the experience. Such magnifications are what I happily refer to as uber-dubious.

To better explain the distinction between the merely dubious & the uber-dubious I usually invoke the comparison of Melville's MOBY DICK with Hurwitz's three-season sit-com ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. Remember Melville's opening passage: Call me... Ishmael. We the readers are instantly invited to regard the narrator-protagonist as a highly suspect personage (HSP). If the the text is willing to deceive to you immediately and openly concerning the identities of its own characters then how can we possibly believe any of it? It opens by casting doubt upon its own capacity to function as the “I” who tells the tale.

Melville's first authorial act is to require a suspension of belief to overlap the ordinary suspension of disbelief that enables access to an imagined storyline. In order to believe him – you must suspect him of not being believable. This should cause us considerable alarm! If the Narrator cannot be relied upon then THERE IS NO STORY. And yet... the story goes on.

Although widely denounced in its day for being “terrible writing” it slowly ascended into that still rare circle of modern texts that can compete with the Sacred Classics of the older civilizations. Despite its perverse denial of the very premise of literature it exerts powerful literary influence. We all recall the archetypical Captain Ahad in his obsessive, peg-legged pursuit of God & that god damned White Whale. He was played for us by the original George Clooney -- Gregory Peck -- and later by the inimitable and hilarious Patrick Stewart. And what about Starbuck? His name has entered the public lexicon along with a vague recollection of the great tattooed Aborigine: Queequeg. How has this occurred if the text denies us the opportunity to enter its world by relinquishing its claim to minimal validity?

The answer, clearly, is that we can enter into this world despite the dubiousity of Narrator. In fact it turns out that belief in the text and its claims are not essential to the effects of the works. We must assume that faith in the Speaker, in his claims, and in his attitude toward what he enunciates is not considerably important to the functioning of the work.

Obviously this has grave implications for social theory. It suggest the premise that “beliefs” are not significant motivators. The stories exchanged as belief systems, the apparent attitudes toward these stories & the references to authoritative structures ARE NOT the signals that define our social space and behaviours. These are mere narration-factors.

This is a dubious matter, sure, but electronica has gone even further – though with less depth and consideration --than Herman Melville. In order to see how this revelation of the disbelieving kernel of belief can be magnified let us consider ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. The Voice Over narration is provided by the wholesome child-star and populist film director Ron Howard whose sense of nostalgic sincerity is rivalled only by the narrator of “The Wonder Years” and the paternal benevolence of Ronald Reagan. It is the sound of the well-meaning rural volk. Hurwitz deploys it alongside the sinister ignorance and obscenely layered misinterpretations of the once-prominent Bluth clan. Periodically a contradiction will arise between the claims of the narrator and those of a character. For example, the emotionally retarded stage-magician G.O.B. (George Oscar Bluth, a.k.a. “Jobe”) announces that he has sexually consummated his marriage to a woman who sells seals. Ron Howard, hovering like the watchful Jehovah in his primal garden, denies and has already denied claim. Now we are at that place of absurdity which Melville invoked – the impossible contradiction in which the narrator's status is cancelled by its pretense. Jobe did not catch God -- the text itself -- off guard with his claim! Very dubious. It becomes uber-dubious when this failed magician, apparently oblivious to the narrator, nonetheless restates him claim as if it had been challenged.

Variations on this pattern occur through the three seasons of the show. The dubious narrator routine is intensified by the disagreement of narrated characters who are embedded in the text only by means of their pretended alienation from the self-expression of the text which they reveal by a deliberately falsified attempt to act if their conflict with the narrative were totally coincidental and in no way a response to the dubious narrator.

This is UBER-DUBIOUS narration.