One of the things I least liked about being in America this past August and September was the political climate. Since the last presidential election it seems that the ability of one to have a speculative and intelligent political discussion without the steady influence of heavy emotions has gotten exponentially worse. I saw it starting with the lead up to the 2008 election and am amazed at how significantly worse it has gotten. By and large, discussion is polarized and its nigh impossible to talk with a dissenting voice in normal tones and with smiles afterwards. I actually quite miss nights of deep discussion over beers of all things politics, culture, theology and tech. Political theory is an intrigue of mine but isn’t enjoyable in such a touchy climate.
I’d add that there are a lot of peripheral things disheartening about such an environment: an unwillingness to work together on important actions items, the reduction of dense political concepts to sound byte sized talking points that may or may not be rooted in fact, the promoting of lies to persuade people, a false characterization of individuals (and broad swathes of peoples), etc. But one of the things that is most troubling is the reality of political violence taking tangible shape.
By political violence I refer specifically to violence undertaken to further political agendas. It’s something that on the surface seems foreign to our American context but this couldn’t be further from the truth. The actual reality is its becoming entrenched in the rhetoric surrounding political discourse throughout the states, and it’s taking tangible form as exemplified by the recent, and tragic, shooting in Arizona.
I suppose this discussion of political violence should probably start with a definition of what violence is. Wikipedia tells us:
Violence is the expression of physical force against one or more people, compelling action against one’s will on pain of being hurt. Worldwide, violence is used as a tool of manipulation and also is an area of concern for law and culture which take attempts to suppress and stop it. The word violence covers a broad spectrum. It can vary from between a physical altercation between two beings to war and genocide where millions may die as a result.
I like this definition as it encompasses specific, literal definitions (see here, here and here) as well as intended reasons and results. Not present, and for good reason, is a specific outline of all of the possible violent acts. Rather it produces a guideline of what makes an act violent or not.
Pulling from this we can easily presume that any act (physical, verbal or otherwise) designed to manipulate or force someones being or will into a situation they hadn’t intended is probably a form of violence. Political violence are those acts with a specific political edge to them, most often designed to manipulate and twist perception to particular political vantage points.
Those things that I mentioned as being disheartening towards the beginning of this note? They tend to encompass some form of political violence. The unwillingness to work together breeds contempt and places ones one self above what is “different.” This manipulates perceptions for or against groups. The promotion of lies to persuade works much the same way, often specifically targeting and attacking specific individuals and/or groups. While an unwillingness to work together is violence in an abstract sense, making use of lies to target and attack begins giving shape to the violence. The same goes with falsely characterizing opponents. Some of the most troubling forms though are rooting political discourse in specific violent imagery. It doesn’t matter if you stand on the right or left side of the line dividing the US, these actions aren’t, and should never be, acceptable.
To be honest I see this as an incredibly important topic of discussion now. There was just an attempted assassination of an elected official, after all. And the response on twitter and elsewhere has just been an escalation of the rhetoric: the left points their fingers at the right, while the right points theirs at the left and meanwhile authorities are still sifting through actual motives and explanations and they might not be what they seem on the surface (are they ever?). It’s all kind of maddening. Can’t we all agree to stop with the violent rhetoric, grab someones hand and choose to work together for the good of the nation? No more crosshairs or targets, no more reloading comments. Lets all just agree to leave the politically violent rhetoric behind.