Get the Feed
Making Everyone a Cultural Critic
Oh, the Democrats have gotten the message now. Turn on any news channel and turn to any op-ed page and you’ll find it. Everyone is rushing to tell us how the Republicans ran a better campaign, mobilizing their base in record numbers on election day (which used to be the Democrats’ speciality) and appealing to a broader, more moderate audience by cornering the Democrats on every key issue — monopolizing the language of “morality,” “values” and “faith.”
Since the Democrats can’t do much more to mobilize their base (although centralizing their get-out-the-vote operation and relying less on third parties makes some sense), the solutions offered have centered around the different ways Democrats need to redefine themselves and take back the issues — and the language surrounding those issues. For some, it means returning to a clearer, more progressive vision. For others, it means getting religion.
All of these laments, however, miss a crucial point. While much of the Republican base based their vote on “morality,” the moderate voters (hesitant in their support for the President in the face of a stagnant economy and daily reports of death and destruction from Iraq, among other things) more likely based their vote on fear and lies.
From the wolfpack to the Swift Boat ads, from the terror alerts to weapons of mass destruction, the Republican practiced the type of demogogery and deception that we think cannot exist in a democracy. It’s the 21st century, however, and in the era where everything is mediated and media is more corporate than journalistic and can easily be co-opted, fascism is only an embedded reporter or a tightly constructed campaign event away.
In the face of this reality, the Democrats have two options — both of which require much more than simply reappropriating language.
The first option is to lower themselves to Karl Rove’s level and pander to the basest tendencies of the electorate, turning them into animalistic consumers of manufactured news, prey for a paternalistic puppet-master, controlling their anxieties and becoming the only source for relieving those anxieties.
And, of course, that can’t be the option we choose — any short-term gain would be at the price of a long-term loss of individuality and identity.
The real solution is education, teaching everyone how to be a cultural critic, able to dissect quickly what the true motives are behind the message.
Sound crazy? It’s only crazy in a society in which the most progressive and eye-opening cultural critics are trapped (often by their own choosing) in an Ivory Tower. While academic research and theory are the essential foundations of a truly enlightened social activism, an equal amount, if not more, time needs to be spent on translating the skills of criticism to a much wider audience.
I see two areas where this translation can happen. Present cultural critics need to come up with a coordinated media strategy that allows them to break into the talking head rotation on the mainstream news channels and talk radio. Whenever a TV show, a news conference, a debate, an advertisement or any other influential cultural representation is in the news rotation, we should make it shameful for any news organization to ignore the “experts” on those issues.
Also, cultural criticism needs to be a part of our primary and secondary school curriculum — where it will reach people at all levels of society. In the end, we should stop scoffing at the “education gap” and start figuring out how to close it.
Posted at 12:11 AM | Permalink | | 
Email
| 
Print
November 4, 2004 at 1:13 pm
Another thought:
Start talking politics in public again. I’m not suggesting name-calling or demeaning conservatives (much as we may feel like doing just that right now) - but talking about issues.
Start by talking with your friends or family - while waiting in line, at restaurants, on the subway, etc. - people overhearing an intelligent conversation about an issue gives them more food for thought than their traditional outlets.
You can start conversations with acquaintences or strangers by asking questions - e.g., have you heard anything about [issue of the day] yet? Even if they don’t know what issue you’re asking about, you’ll at least plant the seed that they should know more about what’s going on.
Outside of DC, many people consider it rude to discuss politics - this needs to change. These are the issues that are important to everyone - why should we be embarrassed to discuss them openly?
Of course, along with this comes the responsibility of staying civilized to those who disagree. I have one friend who was voting for Bush, and when I asked him to explain his reasons, he replied that he was nervous about discussing politics with friends. My mother and her best friend are on opposite sides (she on the left, her friend on the right), and they simply do not discuss politics. Although we all know when we’ve reached a point with another person when we have to agree to disagree, to not have the discussion at all is tragic.
November 4, 2004 at 1:58 pm
Incidentally, Kerry did win the self-described moderate vote by a margin of 55-45 percent (this according to the re-jiggered, correctified exit polls). Also, young voters went for Kerry by 9 points, having gone for Gore by just 2 points in 2000.
November 4, 2004 at 3:48 pm
hear, hear.
in many ways it’s been great being a part of the u. of c. campus the past day or two,
because it’s become a de facto support group for bitter kerry voters. (when
kerry’s concession was announced wednesday morning, i was awoken by the
many-voiced chant of ‘what the fuck, america?’ in my courtyard, and in my first
class of the day my professor greeted us with ‘good morning, fellow damned!’ )
moreover, i’m proud and gratified to live in a place in which, as tuesday night
wore on and a bush victory seemed ever more likely, cpd cars began to
materialize in strategic places - obviously informed by the idea that if
bush were to win, we would have rioted. (we didn’t, but i appreciated the sentiment
;-)). there is also, more productively i think, a collective dawning
realization, or maybe a de-abstraction, of just how insular and remote and
privileged and ivory-tower-encased hyde park is - it was as if, like jon stewart
said the other day, we have all just started to understand the culture war for real. i
know i have. the degree to which i can see my own thought processes at work in
people’s faces is a little terrifying. i imagine the north side is much the same
way.
but dammit - i won’t tolerate another conversation decrying the stupidity of the
american electorate. i can’t tell you how many times over the past few days i’ve
overheard students - clutching dog-eared copies of foucault or levy-strauss or
chomsky or all three and killing time before their ‘post-structuralism and the
dissemination of mass media’ class or whatever - proclaiming, with an air of
having reached a stunning insight, that jesus christ those heartland voters are
dumb.
grrrrrr!
we confront and engage with and analyze and compare sources and deconstruct and
search for subtext in mass media, rather than simply swallowing and digesting it
like so many spoonfuls of nyquil - i want to scream - only because we’re
educated enough to do so. they seem to have forgotten that the art of cultural
critique is not hardwired in most of us, but rather is instilled in us only when
weird little french professors who claim to have dated derrida in the seventies
teach us about the discursive nature of power and make us write papers
questioning the premises of the works we read - no matter how canonical - and
anticipating and exploring the flaws in our own arguments, so that we never get
too comfortable with our own prima facie convictions. not to mention our high
school english teachers, who do the same, but with a much simpler vocabulary and
on public-school salaries ;-).
i guess i just get disheartened thinking about how many of those kids will go
into academia, into a system in which their relevance to the ‘heartland voters’
whose stupidity they bemoan is marginalized as much as possible. they’ll still
work to shape the minds of more smart privileged ivory-tower-dwelling kids, but
if things stay as they are this will do nothing, as you said, to transfer their
hard-earned critical skills to a wider audience.
gah. in sum, college is frustrating. makes me want to drop out and read trotsky
in grant park.
November 4, 2004 at 9:49 pm
Crtically thinking citizens are America’s only hope!
November 5, 2004 at 3:32 pm
While I whole heartedly agree with Bernie’s assessment and recommendations in the long run, I would like to offer some suggestions for 2008. First of all and most importantly the Democrats have to remember that rural America voted overwhelmingly Republican. If you look at red and blue counties, you see that the red clearly dominates the blue even in most states that Kerry carried. Isn’t there anything in the Democratic message regarding the economy, the environment, etc. to appeal to rural Americans?
Let’s face the facts: Move On and similar organiztions may have helped the Democrats but when it came to identifying supporters and getting them out to vote the Republican Party was far more successful. Why? Because it was an organized effort so well calibrated that it would serve as an model case for any management class.
The bottom line ,however, is the candidate. Whether we want to admit it or not the reality is that Kerry wasn’t very good. I don’t know who should be selected in 2008 but if Democrats think the answer is the junior senator from New York, they might as well just not bother to field a candidate no matter how awful the Republican nominee is.