A rhetoric of cowardice and vanity

You know, a lot of times I'll write something about "conservatives," or Right Wingers, or Republicans, or Democrats, academics, feminists, the Media Elites...Hollywood!, and it won't be based on any one thing I've seen or heard or read recently; it'll be based on dozens, even hundreds, of things I've seen, heard, or read over years and years.  I'll be generalizing.  Sometimes grossly, but usually, I think---I hope---accurately.

The art of generalization is a respectable one and a useful and accepted, and fair---fair as in cricket---rhetorical tool, especially when used before a thoughtful, widely-read, educated audience that can be counted on to share a breadth of learning and a body of knowledge, and even more especially when used by someone who has established a reputation for being thoughtful, well-read, fair-minded, and intellectually honest.

Ok, that let's me out.

But now and again, for reasons of time and space, you have to generalize.

Generalizing opens you up to that almost irrefutable rhetorical gambit, the well-timed, "Sez you!"

The blogging club's latest version of Sez you is called a straw man, a term I would like to see given a long rest.

Make an argument based on a generalization and someone's bound to come along and shout, Straw Man!

That's a generalization.

But it's true.

Calling straw man on somone is a way of forcing them off point.  They have to backtrack to go find and produce specific examples and then make the case that the specific examples are representative.  By this time, they and their audience have lost the thread of the debate.

Going into an argument, you should know this is going to happen and be prepared.

Have those examples ready.  Deploy them even before the Straw Men attack.

So when I generalize I usually think, C'mon, Lance, at least give 'em one link, one good example.

The trouble with one good example is that it's one good example.

One's a little thin.

How about two?

Still gossamer.  Make it three.  Three's good.  Three's a magic number in the arts of prose and poetry. 

Takes a lot of time and energy though.

I'm lazy.

So I generalize and pray to be forgiven.

Every once in a while, however, some "conservative," some Right Winger, some Republican, Democrat, feminist, academic, Elite media pundit, or Hollywood insider will come along and drop a good example right in my lap.

Sometimes they do it a little late.

Last Thursday I wrote in a post called As if torture is justified that Bush League apologists making the case that we need to torture the bad guys always argue as if the worst possible case scenerio is the situation of the moment.  They argue, I said, "as if there's a nuclear bomb buried under the White House and the person being tortured knows exactly where and has the code to defuse it."

Another generalization.

Also, true.

But as if he thought I needed at least one example and he wanted to do me the favor of giving me a really good one, Right Wing Renaissance Man, Hugh Hewitt---he rants by blog, by book, by radio, folks!  A real triple threat!---tried to have it that being in New York City puts him out there on the front line in the War on Terror with his guest, a reporter who's in Iraq covering an actual war.

The reporter, Michael Ware of Time Magazine, started to suggest that Hewitt, safe at home in his comfortable radio station, might not have the best vantage point for judging the security problems in Iraq, and Hewitt interrupted him indignantly:

Hewitt: I'm sitting in the Empire State Building. Michael, I'm sitting in the Empire State Building, which has been in the past, and could be again, a target. Because in downtown Manhattan, it's not comfortable, although it's a lot safer than where you are, people always are three miles away from where the jihadis last spoke in America. So that's...civilians have a stake in this. Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.

I've said before, and a lot of other folks have it said before and after me, that the people most terrified by 9/11 were Right Wing bloggers.

(Links up there to digby and TBogg courtsey of The Wolcott.)

Hewitt tries to qualify what he's saying to make it sound like he's not saying what he's clearly saying, but, basically, he feels that he goes to work with a target on his back in a building flying a flag that says in red letters, "Terrorists, bomb here!"

He wants a battle star for having the courage to walk the streets of New York City.

You and 8 million other people, pal.

The Crooks and Liars post about this is headlined Hugh Hewitt: Cowardly Lion, a good title as this seems very much a case of Hewitt pulling his own tail.  You'd think that to say what he said, to believe what's implied by what he said, that he's in as much danger as someone roaming the streets of downtown Bagdad, Hewitt would have to be scared out of his wits.

You would think.

As loyal and obedient propagandists for the Bush Administration, Right Wing bloggers have felt a duty to scare the beejeebers out of the rest of us.  Now, a lot of them were quaking in their boots themselves and were desperate to prove that their own terror ought to be shared by all of America.  And a lot of them have managed to scare themselves, like Cub Scouts telling ghost stories around a camp fire.

But I think all of them, just like the Cub Scouts, enjoy being scared.

They enjoy it because after they're done giving themselves goose bumps, they get to defy their own fear.  They get to be brave.

They can scare themselves silly and then immediately start swaggering around as they've just walked up to a fe-fi-foing, grinding Englishman's bones to make his bread giant and spit in his eye.

To live in fear as if the possibility of another terrorist attack is the same as living under the hourly threat of one is a mark of cowardice.

But to say from the comfort of your radio studio back here in the United States to someone who is in Iraq at that very moment, essentially, "Hey, bub, don't talk to me about danger!  I'm the one knows from danger!  I got your security problems right here!" isn't just cowardice.

It's conceit.

How in love with yourself do you have to be to boast of your courage when all you've done is pick a fight with a straw man?
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Comments

[blue girl]

When I read that story last week I went running around the house like a madwoman raving to my husband about it.

For all the reasons you state above -- but more than that -- Michael Ware is my new boyfriend and no one -- no one! is allowed to say *anything* negative about him!

I think I may have to challenge this Hugh Hewitt to a duel!

[Shakespeare's Sister]

I had a similar thought the other day. Of course, since you're a grown-up, you used real world examples. I used an old Mr. Show sketch and a funny picture of Bush.

[gary]

WOW!

I couldn't possibly agree more with you!

I am all fired up now!

[Michael Bains]

To live in fear as if the possibility of another terrorist attack is the same as living under the hourly threat of one is a mark of cowardice.

Man! This post is honestly what Progressive Blogging is all about. It's well written and clearly analogous to a phenomenon which is both emminently personal and part of a larger cultural state: Fear.

I drive over easily sabotaged bridges everyday. I fly occasionally. I live in a major industrialized metropolitan area, the kind deemed - by all experts - to be a likely target of terrorism. Like Hugh Hewitt, I blog out loud about the triumphs (NASA, [insert favorite cultural iconography here] {-; ) and setbacks (all too many, lately!) of my government and my culture.

I don't fear terrorism. I sometimes do fear the steps our government has taken in order to, as they say, protect me from terrorism, though. Those cross lines established over two centuries ago in order to actually protect Everyone Equally from whomever may gain the power of the United States' government.

I'd say that's a fairly well-substantiated and rational generalization.

[opit]

Fair point, isn't it ? Fear the steps the government has taken THEY CLAIM in order to protect from terrorism. If nothing is certain except death and taxes, government overreach abetted by burgeoning technology has exploded. I see no evidence that competence has been aided by shiny new toys, however : just cold war controls dusted off and expanded.
The flaw of communism was that central control is not viable. I really don't care what ideology is used to promote it, government meddling is death to liberty .
80,000 on no-fly lists, border control enhancements ( making it a pain to get in or out BTW )
This issue is a smokescreen to cover theft from the public purse, nothing more.
The biggest lie is that the nation is being defended and national security is involved. Rape is not defence. Putting the Armed Forces through the meat grinder on a fool's errand is not protection.

[JimPortlandOR]

It wouldn't be so bad if the cowardly lions kept their fear to themselves (and their faux militance, as well), but they seem impelled to use what they think should be universal fear as a bludgeon on those who realistically don't feel fear or have it in proportion to the rest of their lives.

This use of fear is more than the mark of a cowardly lion, it is the tool of a totalitarian who has no other value than winning the verbal war against their domestic opponents. They should be called down each and every time they try to prevail using totalitarian methods.

[Pepper]

Ol' Fraidy's arguments would be textbook examples for teaching logical fallacies in the classroom. Too bad that the Horowitz Crowd would shout it down.

Are they not teaching logical fallacies in the schools? Because we sure could use it now!

[Earl]

The same whimps in high school that were running scared then are now GOP and still running scared. Their all yellow cowards that start wars but stay as far away as they can from them.

[helmut]

As Aristotle said, "those who are frightened fart." (Really. Problems, Book XXVII.9, 948b26). Gives a new twist to the expression, "hot air." If interested, see my riff on this. Link is on the sidebar chez moi: "Political Fear."

[Phoenician in a time of Romans]

Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.

Wow - 3000 deaths in four and a half years, ignoring those placid times beforehand.

Let's see - tobacco kills 440,000 people per annum in the US. At a rough guess, it would have killed about 53,000 people in New York over those 4.5 years...

Hewitt is going to wet himself over that.

[Mad Kane]

What a great post, Lance!

[Praedor Atrebates]

The only thing I fear is what the wingers are willing to do to our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and our country in the service of soothing their fears and opportunistic biases.

Terrorists? Bah! Water on a duck.

[blogenfreude]

My office is blocks from Ground Zero where, eventually, they will construct the biggest target of all. Who knows - I might take office space there. I'm a liberal, but that doesn't stop me from being angry about what they did to my city. And Hewitt? He's nuts - there are far more attractive targets in other cities, and in Midtown. Why not challenge Hewitt to take the top office at 7 World Trade, or in the new "Freedom" Tower?

[Mike Schilling]

"I'm generalizing from one example, here, but everyone
generalizes from one example. At least, I do." -- Issola, by Steven Brust

[The Bulldog Manifesto]

I love the name of your blog. I might be one of the very few people who know what the name means. "Lance Mannion"

Are you taller because of "traction"? LOL

Damn, why do I remember that?

By the way, did you know that there is a boxer named Lance Mannion too?

Anyway, later Mayday.

[Rage]

Actually, Lance what you're talking about is a misuse of the term "straw man." While hardcore logicians might quibble, in my view, it should be used in reference only to statements/claims directed at oneself, and should be (in an ideal world) only used when you want a nicer way of saying "I didn't even imply that, you idiot!"

Used correctly , it is a way of forcing someone on point.

Anytime sometime cries "straw man" to a general claim that wasn't even directed at them, they are simply misusing the language.

Sorry if I'm being a little pedantic.

Sincerely,
Rage
Card-carrying bleeding-heart liberal