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Today's Top News
02.11.10 - 6:33 PM
Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Begin to Try to Explain This
More proof that governance by "We the People" may be a dicey proposition, given that the aforementioned "People" often seem to be wildly irrational, or maybe just impossibly dumb. A new poll finds that 59% of Americans support allowing "homosexuals" to serve in the U.S. military, while 70% favor "gay men and lesbians" serving. Similarly, 44% favor "homosexuals" serving openly, while 58% support...Yup.
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16 Comments so far
Show All'gay' is a great word...
Just as "oral sex" was basically an unknown among children and many adults until the conservatives went after Clinton's sexual activities when they couldn't hang him with anything else, and the in-depth details of the Monica affair became a world-wide news blitz that went on forever, until every person from two years up knew the most intimate and graphic details; homosexuality wasn't that well known until the religious right politicized it and turned it into the absolute worst act on the planet. No doubt these people voting think gays and lesbians are just those trying to get married to others of the same sex, while the homosexuals are those having abomination-type sex.
Again, we must turn to the wisdom of "The Simpsons": I'm reminded of the frustration and exasperation of "Itchy & Scratchy" cartoon mogul Roger Myers, desperately trying to reverse falling ratings on a moneymaking cartoon show-- and discovering the pitfalls of looking to the Amerikan public for wisdom and guidance...
_______________________________________________________________
The Simpsons' episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" includes a scene in which a "focus group" of kids is assembled to watch clips of the show, electronically signal approval or disapproval by turning a knob right or left, and discuss their opinions with a Moderator ("Man"). Meanwhile producer Roger Myers ("Myers") watches, hidden and almost silent behind a two-way mirror-- until he just can't stand it any more:
Man: How many of you kids would like Itchy & Scratchy to deal with real-life problems, like the ones you face every day?
Kids: [clamoring] Oh, yeah! I would! Great idea! Yeah, that's it!
Man: And who would like to see them do just the opposite -- getting into far-out situations involving robots and magic powers?
Kids: [clamoring] Me! Yeah! Oh, cool! Yeah, that's what I want!
Man: So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show... that's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots?
Kids: [all agreeing, quieter this time] That's right. Oh yeah, good.
Milhouse [kid]: And also, you should win things by watching.
Myers, fed up, turns on the light in the observation booth, making himself visible to the kids.
Myers: You kids don't know what you want! That's why you're still kids; 'cause you're stupid!
[sticks his face to the window, deforming his nose] Just tell me what's wrong with the freakin' show!
[turns the lights out]
Ralph: [starts crying, turns the knob left] Mommy!
ยท Yr Obd't Servant
A rose by any other name...
While this is an interesting piece of information, it should be kept in mind that this effect is observable in a wide range of subjects and contexts. Framing and even terminology is, of course, potentially a very important part of the way that people think about and respond to issues, hence for example the rebranding of global warming as 'climate change'.
More importantly, what is being implied by the first sentence of the blurb? Yes, a large percentage of Americans are uncomfortable or even hostile towards homosexuality; while that is regrettable, it doesn't mean that they are either 'wildly irrational' or 'impossibly dumb'. Is the author suggesting that only like-minded progressives deserve the privelage of participating in social decisions and governance?
My interpretation is that Gay and Lesbian connote a broader range of human activity then Homosexual. If the general US population, in this age of ubiquitous Viagra ads and pornography, were given a pointed question about how they act out sex...the vast majority would be emotionally disturbed and become defensive and negate most ensuing questions. Thus, like minded progressives or not, due to the current chaotic state of sexual creative energy, the vast majority of the US population is "wildly irrational" and perhaps "impossibly dumb", though they continue, for better or worse, to participate in social decisions and governance (see Middle East, American and World Ghettos, the debased environment of gated communities, rewarding war in the name of peace, etc....for the worse...). To become "uncomfortable" with a conversation about someone else's sexuality is a sign of neurosis due to a lack of ability and self esteem in one's own sexual life (it's not just an abstract philosophical conversation, but a revealing of how a person functions in the biological dimension), to become "hostile" is a sign of psychosis and the person should be monitored if not intervened with to avoid a murder or mass shooting, not invited to the president's cabinet for discourse like the sadists of the Bush administration: Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell, Rice, etc. (No, the Obama administration is not much better then Bush's, but when the "wildly irrational" public continues to give statements about militancy the loudest applause...what's a politician "joined at the hip" with his constituents to do?).
*****
From the "Most Dangerous Man..." article:
"The problem with the public is not that they desire war and massacre and torture," Ellsberg said. "The problem is that they can easily be frightened or fooled into killing and massacring and torturing. It just isn't that hard. And it's very hard to stop."
Is this the "wildly irrational" and, hopefully not, "impossibly dumb"?
I read a very good piece on this subject the other day, on Counterpunch.
And i was pleased to see it, from a lesbian writer/activist who was hoping that no one would join the military and that she didn't support this particular civil rights move.
I always felt that way about women in the military and particularly women wanting the 'right' to murder just as the guys do.
This writer ended by saying that she felt 'human rights', which is the right of people to not murder and murder and main others, trumped 'civil rights'.
I was quite pleased that she shared her perspective as she was hesitant.
That explains the righties like Larry "Wide Stance" Craig..
...they hate the homosexuals, but LOVE those gay men (and women)....
but what about those dang gay homosexuals?
I wonder how old the sample was.
If you are young your ignorance can be excused. If you are old your stupidity is shameful.
Oh, I can explain it quite easily!
1. "Homosexual" is a word people ar less comfortable with than "gay man" or "lesbian". One brings to mind an ACT, the thought of which or the public discussion of, is repugnant to many people, while the other brings to mind PEOPLE. This is why the movement for culturally accepted "out" homosexualists (to use Gore Vidal's more correct construction) adopted those terms in the first place, remember?
2. The poll itself is apparently labeled "gays in the military". Positive identification with the "poll subject" is typical and was probably part of what asking about "homosexuals" instead of "gays" was meant to help correct in the first place. People have a tendency to go into "test mode" in polls since they resemble the kinds of academic tests that people have taken as children. In "test mode" questions that include the title word are prejudiced to "positive" response quite often. People have a quite RATIONAL desire to "join the crowd" or "follow the leader".
3. These are questions 82 - 85 respectively. We are not shown the Previous 81 questions in the link, or the link from the link marked "Read Complete Poll". We can't know how the previous questions prejudiced these terms in the pollee's minds (beyond my guess in 2.). What we can say with some certainty is that 82 multiple choice and repetitive questions into a PHONE POLL, people have been "broken-down" somewhat personality-wise, and will be prone to answering from the subconscious as opposed to the conscious mind. Which leads back to (1.) since social-conditioning prejudices against some terms and for others.
4. The higher positive response comes in the SECOND two questions. Totally predictable if what is going on is a "break-down" scenario from boredom and annoyance as in (3.). Not only does the repetition of the same question in a different form rouse the person back to "conscious response mode", but the use of a term found in the title of the poll further rouses them since it jumps them back to the more "aware" condition they were in at the BEGINNING of the process. If anything, this demostrates that while people may have been taught to fear/dislike "homosexuals", when they are assisted in answering with their conscious (or "super-ego" enforced) mind, they actually OVERCOME THEIR SOCIAL CONDITIONING! I.e., just as with "race" relations, more people have buried within their subconcious minds strong conditioning against then actually WANT to have that opinion. This is what is ment when a grey-head Liberal says "that was my father talking" after making a joke or comment abut a "non-white race" that violates his own generation's social consensus.
So, that explain it for you?
-matti.
Also, we might usefully remember that it is just as unreasonable -yet rational- to look to a "scientific-sample" of 1,084 people that...
a) Have a landline.
b) Have 45 minutes to talk to a pollster.
c) Are willing to take a poll at all.
... for some kind of real indication of what a significant amount of the People think about anything, as it is for people to respond more positively to words mentioned in that poll's title as I postulated in (2.).
I'd say that to go from this unreasonable proposition to the further one of deciding that based on such a poll, we can say that people are "wildly irrational" in a way that "can't" be "explain(ed)", while not bothering to read the poll questions ourselves or attempt to understand the responses in context, is to advance to actual irrationality.
I think that it exposes a subconscious mind prejudice to:
a) Find oneself "better" than others in general.
b) Find one's "group" better than certain other "groups" in specific.
That this attitude is taken to the point of mocking and deriding people for their responses to a poll that actually show that they are "on our side" -even to the point of overcoming their OWN subconscious minds to be so- is, I believe, compelling evidence that this prejudice is, in fact, irrational (subconscious).
-matti.
It's my guess, but one I'd place a wager on, that most people do not read the polling questions along with reading an article articulating polling results. Thus with your argument, leaving wildly or not out, most decisions are based on irrationality...so you agree with the authors contention that "governance by We The People is a dicey proposition", regardless if the author and/or yourself are acting out of predominately subconscious motivation(?).
****Lengthy Response Warning****
Oh no.
I'd agree that many "decisions" are irrational, and that many more are "unreasonable".
But this hardly effects the "proposition" (one might have said FACT, since it has been the way many Peoples have Governed for centuries) of "governance by We The People"!
Whatever arguments one might wish to say against such a "proposition" (and since it hardly follows that anti-democratic systems can ever be ARGUED into existance, who gives a flip about such arguments? other than for mental sport?) the off-hand and joking one that Ms. Zimet is making doesn't cut the mustard.
As I think I have shown, the discrepancy between repsonses to terms in this poll can be said to reveal a strong RATIONALITY in response as easily as (and with more strength than) it can be shown to reveal a strong irrationality in response amongst the 1,084 people polled.
And response is NOT "decision" no matter how much we want it to be so.
To respond [ ;) ] directly to some of the points in your post:
-But what does "do not read" really tell us? I always TRY to read the polls, since I know that the coverage, summary, and coverage of the summary is often biased or mistaken. Others may "not read" the questions because they do not yet understand, as I do, that this bias or these mistakes often occur. It is not the failure to "read the polling questions" that I called irrational, nor the opinion that "people are 'wildy irrational". It is the decision to "SAY that people are 'wildly irrational' in a way that 'CAN'T' BE 'EXPLAINED'" that I called irrational.
(BTW I do not use the term "irrational" to mean "bad" or "unreliable" or "unworthy", by it I mean "not from the conscious mind", which is why I use it interchangably with "subconscious".)
Such a choice to write such a thing:
"Don't BEGIN to TRY to Explain This"
...when a really quite reasonable explanation is so ready to hand, to me, demonstrates that the writer is responding to subconscious social conditioning and not the conscious, or "rational" mind. I find this ironically analogous to the pollees' disparity in response to "homosexual" vs "gay men and lesbians".
-So, what you label "your(my) argument" is NOT my argument at all. I'm merely arguing that ONE decision seems to me to be irrational. I'm not sure I see how this would translate into "most" decisions being so just because of your (so likely to win that I won't take it) "wager" that "most people do not read the polling questions, etc.".
-Even IF I would agree (which I don't) that "most decisions are based on irrationality" I would STILL not agree with the author's doubt in "governance by We The People". Because:
a) By this she seems to actually mean "governance that includes They the People I Think are Stupid"
b) I don't hold any prejudice against "irrational" and for "rational" decisions. Because by "irrational" I mean simply subconscious, and because the subconscious mind can be just as useful to us (and more important in the case of democracy, the People as a whole) in decision making as the conscious or "rational mind". Think for example of the decisions that we might call "brave" or "cowardly". One may make a brave decision to fight an oppressor/tyrant, or a cowardly decision to succumb to them. Each decision could be said to be either rational or irrational, depending on the circumstances:
Brave(1)- "That bastard can't do this to ME! (This is just what my father did to me when I was small and weak, I cannot tolerate this in my life now that I am big and strong.)" = irrational.
Brave(2)- "If I fight, I may die, but I will help to set my country and my children free." = rational.
Cowardly(1) - "What can I do, what can I DO!? (I am a child helpless in the face of my father's anger, but I must preserve my life.)" = irrational.
Cowardly(2) - "Fighting is useless NOW, we have no hope if I don't survive." = rational.
I personally find NOTHING "dicey" about people who would make any of these four decisions in the face of oppression/tyranny participating in self-government.
None of this even brings up the issue that participation in self-governance can be seen (indeed was by our Founders) as an INHERENT RIGHT of being a human person, not contigent on whether or not other human persons' opinions' rate you "rational" enough to do so!
(sorry again about the length of this response)
-matti.
And of course as Gore Vidal has been pointing out for decades, one can't be a homosexual at all, it's an adjective not a noun. One may engage in homosexual acts but you can't be one. The correct term would be homosexist or homosexer. I'm just sayin... if we follow the rules of the language. With this in mind these stats aren't that surprising really. If you think about it, on a subconscious level homosexual references the act where gays and lesbians references the person.
what would the percentages be in relation to "queer"?
This is just about as frustrating as economics (that dismal science studied by people who generally agree that 3 might be more than 2...in most cases, unless it's congressional accounting).