The “art” of not getting it
When it comes to ideological issues, we just don’t seem to get the other side. Its like a horse with blinkers; one refuses to accept the other view. So many debates end up being about what one perceives the other side ought to be saying instead of debating the substantial point they are actually making.
A case in point is the recent “faggot” comment by Ann Coulter. What the right wingers now on a counter-attack don’t get is that it isn’t the words that matter. Words are just words. Its the thought or lack thereof that they convey. It isn’t that Ann Coulter used that word at one of the largest Conservative forums, its what those words reflect about the conservative movement that matter. As Andrew Sullivan puts it:
[Ann Coulter’s] defense, however, is that she was making a joke, not speaking a slur. Her logic suggests that the two are mutually exclusive. They’re not. […]
Her joke was that the world is so absurd that someone like Isaiah Washington is forced to go into rehab for calling someone a “faggot.” She’s absolutely right[…]
She added to the joke a slur: “John Edwards is a faggot.” [….]
The word “faggot” is used for two reasons: to identify and demonize a gay man; and to threaten a straight man with being reduced to the social pariah status of a gay man. Coulter chose the latter use of the slur, its most potent and common form. […] And that’s what she was doing: trying to delegitimize and feminize a man by calling him a faggot. It happens every day. It’s how insecure or bigoted straight men police their world to keep the homos out.
And for the slur to work, it must logically accept the premise that gay men are weak, effeminate, wusses, sissies, and the rest.
(emphasis mine)
Likewise, some commenters saying out loud that they were unhappy that a suicide bomber in Afghanistan missed Dick Cheney is exactly the same as Bill O’reilley saying that if terrorists attack the Coit tower, San Franciscans should not expect the rest of Americans to come to their help. The difference is that the former were made by anonymous commentors on some blogs; latter were made by a prominent conservative personality. One could say that the latter are representative, while the former aren’t.
However, still, these are mere “words”. If actually the Veep had been hurt or the Coit tower under attack, I am sure the same commentors as well as Bill O’reilley would be “up in arms” (figuratively) against these acts of terrorism. They are mere words because they indicate a resentment of the other side that “just doesn’t get it;” they do not represent a sentiment that the attacks should actually succeed.
However, I am not sure if I could say the same about Coulter’s Timothy McVeigh and NYT building comment.
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