Culture War and Katrina

[pegkerr]

Here's an excellent article in Salon analyzing how the two opposite sides of the culture war (think of Lakoff's analysis) look at the devastation of New Orleans and see two completely different things, coming up with completely different conclusions about what happened and what should be done.

Edited to add: Here is a list, with illustrative excerpts, of a sampling of liberal blogs vs. conservative blogs. They are truly seeing things with entirely different orientations.

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

OK, I got this far and refuse to read any further:

"Although there exists a remarkable amount of heroic self-sacrifice and caregiving beyond dedication in New Orleans, humanity's most altruistic instincts are overwhelmed by images of looting, rape, vigilantism, starvation and death."

Images. Yes, that's exactly what we're getting if we're relying on the mass media. But images are not reality, and I'm paying no attention to any writer who says that "images" overwhelm actual examples of "humanity's most altruistic instincts."

[snippy]

Although I read some conservative blogs, I haven't seen anyone actually arguing that the victims of Katrina deserved it, or that we shouldn't help them because they didn't help themselves. I think this article oversimplifies the arguments of the right-wing conservatives I've been reading, who think both that some responsibility is borne by the people of New Orleans *and* that we must help to care for those displaced and rebuild the city in some form (because it's the most important US port).

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

None of the rightwing blogs I've read have suggested that they -- for whatever values of they -- deserved; the closest I've seen come to any of that is that in the breakdown of civil authority, it was and is predictable that some people are going to do a lot of bad things, and that it would have been wise for both individuals and governments to think about, in advance, what to do about that.

There is, I think, some reflexive circling of the wagons on the right side of the blogosphere, just as there is some reflexive criticism of the Bush administration elsewhere. In the long run, my own hope is that it's the thoughtful analyses -- from all sides -- that will end up determining what's done, but I'm skeptical that that'll happen... too many folks are already metaphorically manning/storming the barricades.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I edited my original post, adding a link to a list here, with illustrative excerpts, of a sampling of liberal blogs vs. conservative blogs. They are truly seeing things with entirely different orientations.

One of them here illustrates exactly what I am talking about:

. . .there were two things that disturbed me nearly as much as the death, destruction and lawlessness. As a matter of fact, one could say that those two things were by-products of the lawlessness.

• I’m sure that I’m not the only one who noticed how many husband-less women and girls there were who had babies and children along with them.
• And I’m betting that I’m not the only one who cringed as more than one man near my dad’s age wailed plaintively about why no one was doing anything for him them.

Back when I was growing up, real men took charge and made decisions. They protected women and children--especially their own children--and got them out of harm’s way; out of the way of things like hurricanes, especially when they had days of advance warning. And if they made the wrong decision, they tried to make things right and/or took the consequences. Like young Jabbar Gibson.

They didn’t expect someone else to be the protector—be the man—and then whine about how the substitute man wasn’t being the substitute man fast enough.

No one should wonder that gangs of thieves, terrorists, rapists and murderers plagued the refugees. Such are the rotten fruit of fatherless societies--societies with a dearth of real men.

Sampling...

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

... depends, of course, on the sampler.

Different samplings would have produced different results. I'm not sure what the basis for Salon.com's sample was. I know the basis for mine -- I read Powerline, Shot In the Dark, Instapundit, LGF, and Bill Whittle on this issue -- because I normally read them. (I ignore the comments at LGF; I don't need more blood pressure. YM probably won't V on that.) I'm sure that there's some things in all of those that you disagree with; there's some things in all of those that I disagree with.

My own blood pressure went up quite a lot in some posting by some lefty blogs and livejournals that I read frequently, too. I'm not sure what, if anything, that says about lefty blogdom in general, although if I wanted to provide a whole bunch of objectionable nonsense, a quick cruise through Daily Kos or Atrios could provide a mountain of it.

Re: Sampling...

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Have you read Lakoff, by the way? It helped me so much in understanding the roots of political discourse and thought in this country--and why so much of the time it seems that one side is shouting "apples" and the other is shouting "oranges."

Re: Sampling...

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

Yes and no. I haven't read the book; I have read some of his essays and a couple of interviews with him. I've been less impressed than you clearly are -- perhaps that's because the book might be better-developed, or, possibly, because -- judging by what I've read -- his worldview is clearly and evidently informed by beliefs that I have thought about, but disagree with. (In some ways, it felt like having a political discussion with Steve Brust -- although Lakoff isn't a Trotskyist, and Steve obviously is. Steve and I not infrequently come to the same political conclusions, but when we agree on something specific, it's basically never for the same reasons.)

[snippy]

Replied to you on my own journal.

My Post on my Blog

[(Anonymous)]

Many people have misuderstoood what I said on my post. Whether the misunderstanding is intentional or not, I don't know.

The opinion that I hold is that men are supposed to be the protectors of a society, especially under conditions of adversity, like those that existed in New Orleans/ They should get them out or protect them until help arrives. My point was that many men of that community seemed to have fallen down on the job. Women and girls and babies should not have to fend for themselves on such a large scale at any time, much less during a disaster; but there was the syndrome right before our eyes.

To add insult to injury, "men" were terrorizing the weaker members of the evacuees--rapes, robberies and murders--rather than protecting them and getting mad because no one would stop the goblins. *That's* what I was referring to (and I spelled it out also). (It's interesting that some of my comments on my blog castigate me for rebuking monsters like these.)

Someone above said that I have a different perspective because I'm a conservative. True, but I have a different perspective also because I live in a community which, similarly, contains a lot of manless families, fatherless children and roving gangs of criminals who terrorize the residents. I'm simply pointing to the that problem and how it makes things worse in *any* situation and, specifically, in really bad ones like that down in the delta.

Thanks for letting me comment.

Juliette A. Ochieng
http://baldilocks.typepad.com

Re: My Post on my Blog

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Thanks for commenting! You have helped me understand your thinking, and it squares exactly with an entry I was in the process of writing, comparing Liberal and Conservative mindsets. Have you read George Lakoff's Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think? See my entry, here where I use your helpful clarification to point out the differences in the underlying moral reasoning between the two points of view. It is very hard for us to understand each other. Your clarification (and Lakoff) helps me see a little more clearly.