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Rethink, not reload
After Saturday's tragic shooting in Tucson, some have pointed the finger at inflammatory political rhetoric.
Many singled out Sarah Palin's now-infamous "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" tweet and her 'Crosshairs' campaign map, which included Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' district, as a sign that some politicians have gone too far in stoking vitriol against their political opponents. (Since the shooting, Palin reportedly emphasized in an e-mail that she "hates violence.") Others reject any connection between the shooter, who does not appear to espouse any coherent ideology, and our current political climate.
What are the ethical and moral implications of incendiary political language?
Ethics asks the questions: what is right to do? How do we know? Ethics and morals concern both the individual and the society. They recognize that the human individual is not a singular, disconnected, particle of organic matter. We exist in community. Our community, society, nation and world are what they are because of human interactions. We know ourselves, speak a particular language, define ourselves in community. The divine impulse is at once transcendent and immanent. It is heaven and earth. This is why every religion not only teaches the meaning of human relationship to the divine, but also teaches the meaning of human relationship with humanity and with the natural world.
Incendiary political language, especially the language of the gun, is a contributing factor to a culture of violence. It is an element in a logic of power-over domination that is antithetical to human flourishing.
A pervasive gun culture exists in the United States. According to Reuters News Service, the United States is the most heavily armed country in the world with 90 guns per 100 people. According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence: "U.S. homicide rates are 6.9 times higher than rates in 22 other populous high-income countries combined, despite similar non-lethal crime and violence rates. The firearm homicide rate in the U.S. is 19.5 times higher."
The Brady Campaign says further: "Among 23 populous, high-income countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States." This is an American exceptionalism that no country envies. Gun violence is expensive to society in medical, security and criminal justice costs. Citing a Harvard study, the Web site says: "Higher household gun ownership correlates with higher rates of homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings."
These statistics show us that the culture of the gun is not healthy for society. I say: the rhetoric of the gun is not morally healthy for society. I do not begrudge sportsmen and sportswomen the use of guns to hunt game as allowed by various state laws. I understand gun ownership as a means to protect person and property even in the face of a deadly correlation between household guns and increased gun violence and death in the home.
However, I think the gun as metaphor is a toxic and irresponsible mode of discourse. A gun is a lethal weapon. It is a weapon that says: "do what I tell you to do or I will kill you." It threatens and too often perpetrates a violence that negates the life, the very existence of the Other. It is an instrument intended to generate fear in the Other. The gun enforces a power-over domination. The person holding the gun has the power, or, at least, one kind of temporary power. The power of the gun leads to a cycle of violence because someone will come along with a bigger faster gun or with more guns to enforce their power-over domination.
Moreover, a gun is too often a deceptive object. It makes powerless people think they have power. It makes vulnerable people--we all are vulnerable--think we are safe.
The vocabulary of the gun, the metaphor, the analogy transfers the qualities of the gun as a lethal instrument, as a weapon that kills, to whatever subject is under discussion. So, the crosshairs of a gun used to indicate swing districts that are targets is without question a threat of violence. It is the violence of language. Talk of "Second Amendment remedies" is also violent discourse.
It is fitting to criticize people who use such imagery to make their political points. Free speech in a free society means that one is free to say what one wants the way one wants to say it. But, it also means that other participants in the conversation are free to critique what one says and how one says it.
Sarah Palin, in her response to the tragic events in Tucson and of the criticism of her use of the language of the gun, quoted Ronald Reagan saying: "It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions." This is a deleterious and incomplete understanding of morals and ethics. Yes, the individual is responsible, but society, the community, shares the moral burden of responsibility. Responsibility is always a responsibility with the Other.
The people who risked their own lives to help each other at the moment of the tragedy understood this. The collective grief that permeates our nation testifies to the truth that the entire nation is injured whenever such mass killings occur. A deeper truth is that the entire nation is diminished when any human life is lost to senseless violence.
We all are responsible for what we say and write. Everyone who participates in the public discourse ought to do our part to end a culture of power-over domination that leads to violent speech and violent acts. It is time to rethink, not reload.
By
Valerie Elverton Dixon
|
January 13, 2011; 3:00 PM ET
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Posted by: RCofield | January 27, 2011 7:21 AM
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Gladerunner,
Where are you? I have a lot more to say on your relativistic, empirical standards. I thought we were just starting to explore and test each others world-view.
Posted by: peterhuff | January 21, 2011 4:09 PM
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GLADERUNNER,
You still out there?
Posted by: RCofield | January 19, 2011 10:13 AM
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GLADERUNNER,
Sorry for the delay. Long day.
For sake of argument, most everyone I have ever met seems to have a gag reflex/ick factor reaction to blood, guts, gore.
……. :-) ……You did manage to water than one down about as far as it can be watered down, didn’t you?
Nonetheless, I think you get the gist of the point I was trying to make. We have adequate evidence (even by your standard) to assume with a reasonable degree of certainty that the majority of people (if not all) have, at some time in their life, a natural, innate revulsion to the infliction of brutality on other humans.
So, let’s go back to your cannot/because statement that skewed us off into this protracted discussion.
“‘We cannot say that the abuse and murder of other humans is ALWAYS (or universally) immoral......BECAUSE......both history and contemporary times tell us that there are some times/places/cultures where some people do not recognize the validity, are not cognizant, or do not accept the very premise, of the innate immorality of such behavior.’”—GR
In light of the sliver of agreement we have established, would you now revise the above statement at all? I’m thinking especially in terms of the recognition/cognizance element of your “because” postulate.
Let me know.
Peace, brother.
Posted by: RCofield | January 17, 2011 7:30 PM
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RCOFIELD:
Continued from expiring thread.
Yes my previous post was a bit snippy and dismissive, my broadband modem is dying (new one on the way) and some of my attempts at posting were being lost in outer space. I hate when the fruits of my brilliance just up and disappear, and I hate repeating myself… ;-)
Conscience/conscious, yeah.
“to what extent do you disagree?”
I could restate as follows:
For sake of argument, most everyone I have ever met seems to have a gag reflex/ick factor reaction to blood, guts, gore.
Better?
GR
Posted by: gladerunner | January 17, 2011 12:33 PM
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Dear Valerie, you are absolutely right.
The ethical guidance apply not only to the individuals but to the media. The media, through its technology reach millions of minds and souls at the same time and prepares the context to set up the tone. The media creates the images, moves the representations, puts in stage the archetypes and emotional windows in the hysterical level, that determines the availability to speak, to listen, to dialogue, to think and finally as you say to rethink.
The society is trapped by the antidemocratic forces that took the interactive dialogue with the others as a talk with "the enemy".The ones who opposes their interest is the enemy of the society. They neglect the others opinion, culture, nationality, ideology in order to prevail by force as you say in the American culture: "by any means necessary".
Posted by: benkosbiojo | January 16, 2011 12:05 PM
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Dear Valerie, you are absolutely right.
The ethical guidance apply not only to the individuals but to the media. The media, through its technology reach millions of minds and souls at the same time and prepares the context to set up the tone. The media creates the images, moves the representations, puts in stage the archetypes and emotional windows in the hysterical level, that determines the availability to speak, to listen, to dialogue, to think and finally as you say to rethink.
The society is trapped by the antidemocratic forces that took the interactive dialogue with the others as a talk with "the enemy".The ones who opposes their interest is the enemy of the society. They neglect the others opinion, culture, nationality, ideology in order to prevail by force as you say in the American culture: "by any means necessary".
Posted by: benkosbiojo | January 16, 2011 11:30 AM
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We are all entitled to know what we are accused of, if our voices are being broadcast on radio and, if so, how to get the paycheck.
Posted by: pennydantonio | January 16, 2011 3:39 AM
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GLADERUNNER,
Don't know what has come of you (hope you're OK), but if you want to continue our discussion after this thread times out Peter and I will be here:
http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/c_welton_gaddy/2011/01/guaranteed_freedoms_sometimes_come_into_conflict.html