Americans are offended by argument. Real argument. Real argument is not the attack on ethos; it is the intellectual back-and-forth of ideas sculpted by critical thinking. In America, when a person puts forth a strong opinion about a subject (any subject), he is consequently attacked and often called something along the lines of an "asshole." Some people take that cutesy expression, "opinions are like assholes," a little too literally. I think I've said this before: if having a strong, even slightly offensive, opinion makes me an asshole, then please count me in.
Why do I call out Americans in particular? (Because I'm secretly hoping for an enraged comment detailing the reasons I'm a judgmental and snobby bitch who should move to France). Because Americans are argumentative pussies. (And I used that terms in hopes of being attacked for my questionable word choice rather than for the thoughts behind it). Yes, "pussies." We are afraid of argument because we have grown up believing that it is the thing that our parents do late at night when they thought we couldn't hear them. And, with that in mind, when we do choose to engage in argument, we do so in the manner of our dissatisfied parents: we name call and we attack character and we don't hear a damn word that the other person says and anything of substance that we manage to say is lost in a sea of obliterating anger. And, the most egregious fail of all our argumentative gaffs is our end goal of threatening one another into silence. For evidence of this, take a look at any Fox News talk show. (Yes, that example will likely incite someone to haughtily point out my insane ability to over generalize, but I assume my readers are intelligent people and I don't have all day.)
Now, let's take a look at France. (Yup, I'm a Francophilic bitch, please take your time to say it once more in the comments below). In France- and, from what I hear, many parts of Europe- there is a culture of argument that is fostered even in the young. Families have arguments at the dinner table and everyone is encouraged to participate and sculpt their opinions to a sharp point. In France, if you attempt to get into a conversation with someone and you are not able to defend your position on matters of politics, history, literature, and Art in a critical fashion, you are virtually shunned. A person without strong viewpoints and without the ability to break down topics is not a person worth talking to. And, if you try to attack a person's character as a primary means of argument, that's a no-go. Because the French, for whatever reason (maybe because they care more about education- real education- or maybe because they actually learn critical thinking) are not easily offended and will find such a route of attack as one on ethos to be useless. As do I.
Since some of you are probably wondering what the hell crawled up my ass and died tonight, I'll explain where my thoughts are coming from. My ideas in this blog are shaped by two things that happened today: my friend who is visiting from Ireland informed me that my boyfriend and I should move to Europe because we are too smart and too opinionated to live in America (oh what a pretentious jerk I am for repeating this, I know, I know- spare me), and then I came home and read the responses to Jack's recent blog. The latter made me realize that my friend is right. This is no country for real debate and now I am falling prey to all of it by even writing this blog and by even letting my thoughts dwell for so long on this irritating issue. So, I'm going to go absorb my brain in some Kenneth Burke and try to cleanse it of all of this nonsense (how very snooty- please proceed to disregard all points that I have made as a result of my horrifyingly bitchy tone).
Merci,
Leena
This blog tickled my fancy.
ReplyDeleteMy parents met at a debate tournament in high school, so I was raised to be unafraid of arguing. I can't count the number of times I heard "why are you being so defensive, make a real argument" when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteSo, from the standpoint of that background, let me agree completely with you. Americans are giant, weeping pussies about arguing. No one wants to be offended, we rarely want to offend other people, and it leads to a lot of boring conversations. Which is exactly why our snooty, opinionated, bright little group drew together: we were all such assholes that we couldn't really be offended y one another.
Sidenote: In France philosophers have to fend off paparazzi; they're huge celebrities and kids want to grow up to be existentialists. In America kids want to grow up to be Kim Kardashian, or worse, the star of 16 and Pregnant. However, fuck France, let's buy an island and only let other snooty elitists join us. Eric can be our customs official.
I love all three of you (Claire/Leena the most. Seriously...I fucking love her so much.)
ReplyDeleteAnd you know what guys, I couldn't agree more with all your posts, but..I have some rather bad news...
ReplyDeleteIts gotten even worse in America. Not only has the government worked hard to hurt no one's feelings, but now they care more about the feelings of illegal aliens and criminals than they do hardworking citizens of this country.
(I you disagree read the Dream Act [Parts I&II]that the California state government was so quick to pass)
I agree with Alli. We need to get an island.
May I suggest one in the Pacific northwest
Undoubtedly Yours,
Bermuda
So I just read those parts of the bill in case I was missing something, but I still don't see how this issue relates to fear of offending people. The Dream Act is not about protecting people's sensitivities, it's about maintaining equal opportunity and is grounded in the concept of naturalization which is an important one in our cultural history.
ReplyDeleteI wonder who engineered the concept of political correctness. It is diabolically genius in how it sets up parameters in the name of “being nice.” In reality, it is self policed censorship that has turned us into pansies (I prefer the term pansies because, while pussies can take a beating, pansies are plucked and crushed with little resistance).
ReplyDeleteThe aim of political correctness is so prevalent in the school system that I am amazed at the unrealistic expectations that have surfaced in a realm that dares to call itself education; we have turned our backs on reason in the name of “feelings.” It is a shame that speaking the truth automatically puts one on the defense. You are not a bitch Leena; you are just smarter than many people want to be.
My reference to the Dream Act was to show that our state politicians are more concerned with making everyone equal or extending the analogy to our discussion, making the argument that all "art" is "Art".
ReplyDeleteThose politicians would rather make everyone equal rather than face the true reality that not everyone is equal. That a citizen in his home country has more rights than someone there illegally.
What is important in our cultural history, is legal immigration. If we stand by and appease people who say, "This is America" by letting illegal migrants have the same rights as the countless Irish, Italian, and Eastern European legal immigrants who fought, and earned they're citizenship, we are only doing our strong, immigrant cultural identity a strong disservice.
Thus we should stop caring about people's feelings and be strong enough to give them some tough love.
Undoubtedly Yours,
Bermuda