It would be merciful if when tragedies such as Tucsons occur there were a moratorium on sociology. But respites from half-baked explanations often serving political opportunism are impossible because of a timeless human craving and a characteristic of many modern minds.
The craving is for banishing randomness and the inexplicable from human experience. Time was the gods were useful. What is thunder? The gods are angry. Polytheism was explanatory. People postulated causations.
And still do. Hence: The Tucson shooter was (pick your verb) provoked triggered unhinged by todays (pick your noun) rhetoric vitriol extremism climate of hate.
Demystification of the world opened the way for real science including the social sciences. And for a modern characteristic. And for charlatans.
A characteristic of many contemporary minds is susceptibility to the superstition that all behavior can be traced to some diagnosable frame of mind that is a product of promptings from the social environment. From which flows a political doctrine: Given clever social engineering society and people can be perfected. This supposedly is the path to progress. It actually is the crux of progressivism. And it is why there is a reflex to blame conservatives first.
Instead imagine a continuum from the rampages at Columbine and Virginia Tech - the results of individuals insanities - to the assassinations of Lincoln and the Kennedy brothers which were clearly connected to the politics of John Wilkes Booth Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan respectively. The two other presidential assassinations also had political colorations.
On July 2 1881 after four months in office President James Garfield who had survived the Civil War battles of Shiloh and Chickamauga needed a vacation. He was vexed by warring Republican factions - the Stalwarts who waved the bloody shirt of Civil War memories and the Half-Breeds who stressed the emerging issues of industrialization. Walking to Washingtons train station Garfield by chance encountered a disappointed job-seeker. Charles Guiteau drew a pistol fired two shots and shouted I am a Stalwart and Arthur will be president! On Sept. 19 Garfield died making Vice President Chester Arthur president. Guiteau was executed not explained.
On Sept. 6 1901 President William McKinley who had survived the battle of Antietam was shaking hands at a Buffalo exposition when Leon Czolgosz approached a handkerchief wrapped around his right hand concealing a gun. Czolgosz an anarchist fired two shots. Czolgosz (I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people - the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime.) was executed not explained.
Now we have explainers. They came into vogue with the murder of President Kennedy. They explained why the real culprit was not a self-described Marxist who had moved to Moscow then returned to support Castro. No the culprit was a climate of hate in conservative Dallas the paranoid style of American (conservative) politics or some other national sickness resulting from insufficient liberalism.
Last year New York Times columnist Charles Blow explained that the optics must be irritating to conservatives: Barack Obama is black Nancy Pelosi is female Rep. Barney Frank is gay Rep. Anthony Weiner (an unimportant Democrat listed to serve Blows purposes) is Jewish. Its enough Blow said to make a good old boy go crazy. The Times which after the Tucson shooting said that many on the right are guilty of demonizing people and of exploiting arguments of division apparently was comfortable with Blows insinuation that conservatives are misogynistic homophobic racist anti-Semites.
On Sunday the Times explained Tucson: It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madmans act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But . . . The directly is priceless.
Three days before Tucson Howard Dean explained that the Tea Party movement is the last gasp of the generation that has trouble with diversity. Rising to the challenge of lowering his reputation and the tone of public discourse Dean smeared Tea Partyers as racists: They oppose Obamas agenda Obama is African American ergo . . .
Let us hope that Dean is the last gasp of the generation of liberals whose default position in any argument is to indict opponents as racists. This McCarthyism of the left - devoid of intellectual content unsupported by data - is a mental tic not an idea but a tactic for avoiding engagement with ideas. It expresses limitless contempt for the American people who have reciprocated by reducing liberalism to its current characteristics of electoral weakness and bad sociology.
It would be merciful if when tragedies such as Tucsons occur there were a moratorium on sociology. But respites from half-baked explanations often serving political opportunism are impossible because of a timeless human craving and a characteristic of many modern minds.
The craving is for banishing randomness and the inexplicable from human experience. Time was the gods were useful. What is thunder? The gods are angry. Polytheism was explanatory. People postulated causations.
And still do. Hence: The Tucson shooter was (pick your verb) provoked triggered unhinged by todays (pick your noun) rhetoric vitriol extremism climate of hate.
Demystification of the world opened the way for real science including the social sciences. And for a modern characteristic. And for charlatans.
A characteristic of many contemporary minds is susceptibility to the superstition that all behavior can be traced to some diagnosable frame of mind that is a product of promptings from the social environment. From which flows a political doctrine: Given clever social engineering society and people can be perfected. This supposedly is the path to progress. It actually is the crux of progressivism. And it is why there is a reflex to blame conservatives first.
Instead imagine a continuum from the rampages at Columbine and Virginia Tech - the results of individuals insanities - to the assassinations of Lincoln and the Kennedy brothers which were clearly connected to the politics of John Wilkes Booth Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan respectively. The two other presidential assassinations also had political colorations.
On July 2 1881 after four months in office President James Garfield who had survived the Civil War battles of Shiloh and Chickamauga needed a vacation. He was vexed by warring Republican factions - the Stalwarts who waved the bloody shirt of Civil War memories and the Half-Breeds who stressed the emerging issues of industrialization. Walking to Washingtons train station Garfield by chance encountered a disappointed job-seeker. Charles Guiteau drew a pistol fired two shots and shouted I am a Stalwart and Arthur will be president! On Sept. 19 Garfield died making Vice President Chester Arthur president. Guiteau was executed not explained.
On Sept. 6 1901 President William McKinley who had survived the battle of Antietam was shaking hands at a Buffalo exposition when Leon Czolgosz approached a handkerchief wrapped around his right hand concealing a gun. Czolgosz an anarchist fired two shots. Czolgosz (I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people - the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime.) was executed not explained.
Now we have explainers. They came into vogue with the murder of President Kennedy. They explained why the real culprit was not a self-described Marxist who had moved to Moscow then returned to support Castro. No the culprit was a climate of hate in conservative Dallas the paranoid style of American (conservative) politics or some other national sickness resulting from insufficient liberalism.
Last year New York Times columnist Charles Blow explained that the optics must be irritating to conservatives: Barack Obama is black Nancy Pelosi is female Rep. Barney Frank is gay Rep. Anthony Weiner (an unimportant Democrat listed to serve Blows purposes) is Jewish. Its enough Blow said to make a good old boy go crazy. The Times which after the Tucson shooting said that many on the right are guilty of demonizing people and of exploiting arguments of division apparently was comfortable with Blows insinuation that conservatives are misogynistic homophobic racist anti-Semites.
On Sunday the Times explained Tucson: It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madmans act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But . . . The directly is priceless.
Three days before Tucson Howard Dean explained that the Tea Party movement is the last gasp of the generation that has trouble with diversity. Rising to the challenge of lowering his reputation and the tone of public discourse Dean smeared Tea Partyers as racists: They oppose Obamas agenda Obama is African American ergo . . .
Let us hope that Dean is the last gasp of the generation of liberals whose default position in any argument is to indict opponents as racists. This McCarthyism of the left - devoid of intellectual content unsupported by data - is a mental tic not an idea but a tactic for avoiding engagement with ideas. It expresses limitless contempt for the American people who have reciprocated by reducing liberalism to its current characteristics of electoral weakness and bad sociology.
