i'm the president. i'm the decider.

[intertribal]

President H.W. Bush: "Now Junior, I mean Dubya here, he's the real Born-Again."

W. is a movie I think every American should see. It starts off and you're so amused by the "impersonations" by the actors of Bush and his cabinet that you think it's going to be an SNL skit, but what it becomes is cathartic experience.

First off, let me just confirm that Josh Brolin is one of my new favorite actors. Yes, all I've seen is this and No Country For Old Men, but, damn. He's a talented guy.

Does Bush come off as sympathetic? Yes, in a welcome-to-the-human-race kind of way (Perp: "You don't know what it's like." Goren: "What? To work so hard, and still be a nobody?" Perp: "Yes..." Goren: "Welcome to the human race."). Would Bush, as Stone I believe said, like this depiction of him? No. It's fair, and it's sympathetic, but it's not gentle. I seriously doubt any of his supporters would like this movie. Other people who come off similarly include Colin Powell, the rest of the Bush clan, and Laura Bush. Plenty of people come off as unsympathetic - Condoleeza Rice was a particularly grating sycophant, Rumsfeld and Cheney are brutal strategists who disappear when the "WMDs" in Iraq are similarly nowhere to be found, and Karl Rove is a peculiar Gollum-like creature who skulks in the shadows of the war room with binders filled with statistics who lives so vicariously through W. that at one point he calls George H. W. Bush "Poppy".  But part of W.'s problem is that he is surrounded by people trying to put words in his mouth - Rove and Cheney in particular are the most egregious of the bunch - and he must every now and then remind these underlings that he is the President, he's leading the campaign, it starts and ends with him.  As it turns out this is because he suffers from a chronic fear of not being in control of his own life, not living up to the Bush name, not being Texan enough, not "earning his spurs", as his father puts it.  

What this movie drives home is something I very much agree with: that politicians are just people, just normal people with the same psychoses and neuroses the rest of us have - they've just got the power to act on their insanity. W.'s problem is essentially that he lives in fear of disappointing his father, who prefers his brother Jeb - when W. becomes governor of Texas but Jeb loses the same race in Florida, Bush Sr. mopes about how hard it is for feet-on-the-ground, head-screwed-on-straight Jeb, and W. says, "Why do you always have to be feel bad for Jeb? Why can't you feel good for me?" When Bush Sr. loses the presidential race in 1992 and breaks down crying, saying he thought the war would be enough, W. is flustered and infuriated - he shouts that this would never have happened if his father had charged onto Baghdad like W. told him to. While pacing outside as his mother consoles his father, W. tells Laura that he will never let that happen to him. And indeed: during the campaign for war in Iraq, he asks Ari Fleischer if the latter told the press that "I hate assholes who try to kill my dad".

At a disastrous press conference, Bush struggles to pick his worst mistake.

We have no idea, of course, if these conversations took place, but they may very well have. The thing is, I've realized recently that part of the reason I want to work in government is because I want to be there for the wank. People in government are crazy, snarky, bitter, tired people, and this movie captured that excellently. My favorite scene in the whole movie is probably when W. is leading his cabinet - in their suits and their middle-aged bodies - on this trek through some kind of military training ground that is essentially prairie. They're constantly batting at flies and trying not to groan because W. in his safari suit is so enthusiastic about this, laying out his vision for the war in Iraq and dismissing Colin Powell as a worrywart, cracking jokes that the rest of them are obligated to chuckle at. They seem to have lost the trail, but W. assures them the vehicles are just up ahead, another half a mile, "just follow me!" and they all head off into the wilderness.

A lot of people think that politicians are a different class of people. They're either super-intelligent hyper-Americans, revered as Gods, or soulless, evil robots (or soulless, evil puppets who can't tie their own shoelaces). This girl in my thesis class said the other day, "People in the State Department are all the same. They just re-program the new people that come in." And a lot of people follow this idea that Capitol Hill is all anonymous suits and ties, "yesmen", cronies working for Big Ideas. This is just bullshit, and that goes for both parties. Believe me. People in the State Department are most certainly not "all the same". I can tell stories. This is from my research:

"The fact that the USA tried to discredit Sukarno through attempting to make a pornographic movie about his romantic proclivities indicates the climate of the times."

"While some of Sukarno’s American critics considered his recent outburst egregious but not inconsistent with previous antics, the CIA detected a deeper significance. Agency analysts began to suspect that Sukarno was becoming mentally unhinged… One of Sukarno’s wives, his fourth, seemed to be the source of most of the problems; the CIA’s contacts reported that some of Sukarno’s associates were plotting to kill her."

"The undersecretary of state [Ball] discounted what he considered wishful thinking by Jones; the ambassador, whose retirement was at hand, seemed to be showing the strain of seven years at a difficult post. An extraordinary request by Jones a few days earlier that Johnson personally assure Sukarno that the CIA was not trying to assassinate him did not improve Ball’s estimate of the ambassador’s judgment."

I'm sorry, but this is stuff I find positively hilarious.  And it's all true, and it all had real consequences.  Politics is about a lot of things, but politicians are not sterile 'droids.  They're not all-bad or all-good, like so many people would like to believe.  They don't behave in a way a realist political scientist would describe to be "rational".  But then again, who does.  People are not perfect calculators of gain/loss margins. 

W. and his reverend pray after he announces that he has heard the call:
"God wants me to run for president."
The reverend's doubt-filled reaction: "... truly?" 

Comments

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I very rarely genuinely cannot see the other person's perspective, however, so it's easier for me to say things like, "I see what you're saying, but..."

Me too, actually. I just rarely say so explicitly.

I feel like this would just seem like bullshit coming from you

I agree, because I think it is bullshit. I get to the intellectual points, and leave out the fluff, usually. To me, that's just being polite, and I don't really give a crap about being polite. Maybe I should, I don't know. If you disagree with someone, that's what's interesting, that's what needs discussing--maybe you see what they're saying, but maybe be discussing it you'll both be able to refine your views. It's fantastic.

I'm not sure how to tell you to have a discussion instead of an argument except maybe that driving the discussion in a certain direction by only talking about something you personally take issue with, and not acknowledging any points the other person makes, is sort of going to invite an argument.

Hm. But why tell them that I agree on everything else? That's implied by the fact that I don't mention it. It's not very interesting. I mean, if we just agree, than we might as well end the discussion and go home. I don't see what the point of talking about agreement is. I guess I could question those too.

I think primarily the whole picking out things you disagree with and only commenting on those is what grates me. My mother does something similar: she only responds to anything with corrections. It feels like I'm just there as a critical exercise for your beliefs, instead of an actual person who gets to be genuinely excited or emotional about something, who gets to be my own person instead of a reflection of what matters to you.

Whoah. I can't speak for your mother, but that's totally not what I'm trying to do at all. When I respond with a disagreement, even if I responded with a 'correction', I would most likely see it more as being helpful, like, "Well, I think you're on the right track here, this is all great, I agree, but there's one point I take issue with, and it's this." And if you can prove my point isn't relevant, or isn't important, then it stands as is. It's also beneficial for me to think about, but that's not really my primary concern, to 'critically exercise my beliefs'. That's just how I deal with people I think are intellectual equals. Ideally, it makes us both emotional and excited, the discussion itself, but clearly there's a disconnect there for us right now.

I think the whole agreeing on the presuppositions to discussion is probably a large part of what's missing and what makes this not work.

Maybe...though I'm not sure we mean the same thing by this? Well, what presuppositions would be missing?

I'm not saying you have to accept what I'm saying, or agree with me or shut up. I don't know what to do really, except not write about things that are likely to incite arguments.

I certainly wouldn't want you to do that. I'll try to be more careful/considerate, though I think part of this must rest on misunderstanding...

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I mean, arguing like this doesn't invigorate me. It doesn't make me think. If anything it makes me think less

Hm, well that's certainly not good. I'm sorry to be part of that.

it makes me stressed, and it disables me from doing my work or my writing. It makes me feel sort of ill/nauseated.

I know what you mean, but don't you see that it makes me feel that way too when you disagree with what I'm putting forward as important beliefs? I think that's what being challenged in my beliefs just feels like, for me. I think beliefs are comforting, and if you can have a totally bland, comforting, discussion, you aren't really dealing with something in a way that can change what people think. Not that you will otherwise, but it's the potential, the stress involved, the doubt.

And I think it's at least in part because you determine the things we "discuss", and they're not the things I would discuss and thereby have strong opinions on, they're sort of incidental things that I don't have any strong opinion on. And to me it all just becomes such bullshit, very fast.

Well, aside from what's important to me just being called "incidental things", what would you discuss? I mean, I know you have strong opinions on other things, but very often they are things where all I can say is, "I agree", or "That seems right," or "I'm glad you had that experience," or whatever. I really don't know what else to say. By all means, though, change the topic if you're bored with what I ramble about. Ask me questions, or demand response to something. I'll do my best.

Like just now. I'm trying to make a real point about why I have a hard time dealing with foundations of life and such - and further that I'm trying to tell you about myself and how I came to be who I am now, which I think is a very important sort of realization - and you completely skip over it.

I really didn't skip over it. I read every word, and responded, in my way. Perhaps I responded less than I could have because I didn't want to emphasize disagreement here, in this discussion. I don't think big ideas are worth blood, but I do think they're worth honesty. Why not live for them? Why want a calm, healthy life? I would choke on a calm, healthy life. I would get tired, and sleep all the time, and never be motivated. It would end up the opposite of healthy. And so I don't know what to do with your experience. I don't see why ideas should make shrapnel. I don't think we have to get "nasty over ideas", but I do think people should be able to deal with them, and maturely, and that that's a lot less likely to create real shrapnel than ignoring them and letting things lie calm. But I don't think, as I said, that that means I need to "attack" others' beliefs. But question, always question. I'm sure it's good for the Foreign Service, that makes a lot of sense, it's the essence of being diplomatic. If I were trying to be diplomatic, certainly, I would take other approaches, but I take a lot of things as part of a struggle to find the truth. As for "The Quiet American", I've seen the movie but not read the book. My dad took me because he likes Michael Caine. But I've forgotten most of it, except being disturbed by some aspect of sex/romance in the movie. So, perhaps I should read it.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I know that's natural, but I feel like it's been happening a lot lately, and most of the things I'm thinking about lately relate to this, relate to my past and how that relates to my future, and they're not necessarily theoretical building blocks or anything, but they are important to me.

Maybe I'm missing the point, or maybe I don't know how to respond...I don't know what to say.

They're not even opinions, they're just observations/realizations about myself.

But they seem to contain opinions, and a much more stable, unchanging view of your identity... But if I take them as non-opinions, I don't know what I can say. Congratulations?

But it's like if it doesn't have to do with what you care about, with these big ideas that I am so afraid of, it just gets passed over and is never spoken about. And to me that is like skipping over my life. It is like skipping over what makes my life important and worth living

How? Why? Maybe I just don't get your life, or what you think is important, but, well, I'm confused as to how this seems to you to be what I'm doing. Confused as fuck.

and what makes it worse for me is that I'm skipping over this in order to have an argument about something I don't even have an opinion on or care about.

You don't care about what would best make a democratic society? Because that's what I was trying to talk about. Obviously badly.

And I feel like this is what I'm always doing these days, bypassing my own interests for someone else's.

I'm sorry. I don't expect you to do that for me. But what are your interests?

And this is really, really upsetting to me.

Again, I'm sorry.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Well, they're making some of the decision, and the voters are putting them in office...no, you're right, the voters don't decide shit. The frame is part of society, for me, it's part of what people care about, what they think, and the politicians aren't just motivated by trying to maintain a certain image but are themselves a part of that same society, with those same thoughts. It's complex and intertwined.

That I think is true. I think most stereotypes are harmful in the long run...

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I just want to say...I think things have gotten mangled, and a lot of that is my fault, but I think some of what I wanted to do was to respond to your life, because i do care, and i feel like i don't understand where you are right now, and it troubles me.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

maybe it just comes out stupid, because i try to come up with LJ comments instead of just talking to you, or because i'm too "logical and unemotional" lately (jason just accused me of this, hah), or i don't know what. and i feel like everything i've really felt in response to what you say has come out all wrong in what i've written to you. sigh.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

"Well, I think you're on the right track here, this is all great, I agree, but there's one point I take issue with, and it's this."

I don't think this is implied. I don't think you think I'm your intellectual equal, I think that you think I'm your intellectual punching bag. When you don't respond to other things I assume it's because you don't find anything interesting about it.

I mean, a lot of the things that intellectually stimulate me are not opinions. It's like, let's think about a plane crash. That's what gets me excited, and that's the kind of thing that doesn't need an argument - or, I mean, you could have one, but it's more the kind of thing that just invites more evidence, more stories, more weirdness. And I do want to hear bizarre opinions on things like plane crashes, but I want to synthesize it myself. Anyway what I'm trying to say is that I much prefer pooling data to having arguments, especially because I don't think I'm informed enough to have an argument. I like to bring things up but I don't have arguments about things unless I really really know what I'm talking about, and even then, you don't have arguments about things like plane crashes beyond the very technical arguments of what caused the plane to crash.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

My father chose his big ideas over me and my mother. And the thing is, my dad was always fucked over by big ideas. It's what got him taking part in genocide, and then he went in the complete opposite direction and became Marxist to make up for it, and then when things got bad he ultimately chose to detach from us because he could not stop worrying about the direction of the country.

And this is not to say that I don't like ideas. I do. But in healthy doses, and with a more tolerant attitude. I see parts of my father in myself and it frightens me, especially when I see one of his good friends, who always had political discussions with my dad but was able to take things in stride and able to have a life outside of ideas - and he's still doing fine now, and my dad is in the fucking ground. You know? That's my experience.

And the other thing is, the way I work through ideas is by writing fiction. A lot of what I write is extremely idea-centric. For me that's a more holistic way of expressing myself than I could ever put down in a written discussion like this.

Part of my career goal is to be diplomatic. I don't look for truth and I actually don't even try to figure out how to make the best democratic society. My goal is to just keep things together, mend the stitches. Other people are free to search for truth and debate about democracy. But my life if I join the Foreign Service won't be happy and calm in the sense where I could sleep all the time, it would be filled with action, as cliched as that sounds. And I would be discussing things that matter to the post, but it would be on a much less meta scale than discussions we've been having. And I would be writing. And honestly, I would be plenty happy with that.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

We do care about similar things if you frame it that way. I would never, ever, ever describe any of our conversations as "what would best make a democratic society" because what you talk about sounds much more overarching than that. When I think of what would best make a democratic society I don't think of what you think of. I think of pluralism and freedom of press and fair elections and civil society and rule of law. And I know, believe me, that a lot more ties in - but if I try to think about what you think about, it would break my head, because I already think in too much detail about things like civil society and because my brain is always half-taken up by stories I'm trying to write and characters in my head.

I think that I tend to think horizontally instead of vertically. So say I'm talking about, I don't know, masculinity in the military. What I like to do is make that discussion richer rather than immediately jumping up a level to the frames our society uses and ceasing to talk about concrete things. And I think that is because I write, so I think in terms of details and images and emotion and texture - instead of, say, truth, or philosophy, which I would call more vertical.

And when I'm forced to think vertically I can't even form a cogent argument, because it's too vague for me. That's why it becomes bullshit. But this ties back into the pursuit of truth and relativism. And then I start feeling like my own interests are getting pushed aside. A better way of putting it is that the argument is never defined the way I would define it. It's always on a different, bigger scale, where I can't make sense of things, because it seems like the factors are mind-bogglingly infinite. And that's fine if you think that way. But you can't expect me to. We're not the same person.

I mean, all I wanted to say in this post is that I find the quirks of politicians interesting, and I find their neurosis interesting. I've always liked the idea of a link between insanity and politics. I have nothing really to back me up on that but I like thinking about it. And I don't want to just immediately step into frames and society and how it's all part of a big system. And I'm a constructivist, you know, I like systems, but part of the reason I'm a constructivist is actually because it's the only perspective that allows for things like irrationality. And I wanted to dwell on that level. I'm sure that if I wrote about insanity and politics you would be able to dismiss it as something very insignificant in the large scheme of things (or that it has nothing to do with insanity because it's all been carefully sculpted by the system, or something else that completely dismisses it as unimportant to talk about) and maybe it is insignificant in the history of humankind. But see, in my lifetime, in my career, I'm likely to encounter insane people in politics. And it doesn't matter a whole lot to future-me how society in the long-run shaped them to be that way, and why no one likes to be objectified, and how we're all part of a group that's been stereotyped - I just need to be able to deal with them in the immediate timeframe, and quite frankly, to be amused about it. And I'm sure that sounds like a very small life to you but I'm okay with it. Honest.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Well, it's how I feel sometimes, and maybe I should say it more. I dunno.

But it's true that I don't find plane crashes terribly interesting. I asked why you did, and that was interesting, but for me, planes are just one small thing, one small symptom of larger forces. I mean, for you they aren't just planes either, but in a much more metaphorical way? But that will be my opinion on things like plane crashes, because it's how I think. I don't get pooling data, because at a point it stops being helpful to a scientific investigation and just becomes more data. That's the sort of thing I write about on my LJ sometimes--methods of investigation, and logical ways of going about these problems, and why sometimes it doesn't work--because it interests me, because I want to make things better. I don't always think I'm informed enough to have an argument either. That's why I take quotes and scraps--too much, sometimes--because I want to think about them and have people think about them with me so that we can develop ideas further, and learn.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Anyway, I don't think anyone is a punching bag. I really think very little about ranking people in terms of intellectual capacity. I don't think I can do so in any way that would convince me, so I don't bother. I treat most people who I think are worth talking to in about the same way, and react to what I get back. Sometimes I don't see what you see in something. I'm not you, and I can't be.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Are you saying ideas killed your father?

My experience, I suppose, is of people who don't care about ideas making stupid decisions because of it, not reflecting on their marriage until they'd been married 10-15 years and had a child, not thinking about where they stand in society but only wanting 'what they deserve', caring more about their financial status than the friends around them, and in the end, being naggingly unhappy and alone. That's one experience. Another is of myself not engaging with school and freaking out instead, and people like Steve telling me that if I just let myself be excited about ideas, if i let that show in class and in my assignments and other aspects of my life, then I would achieve academic success as well, without ever having to try for something as material as good grades. People like Steve trying so hard to be a good teacher and so invested in it because they feel that a liberal education, that trying to help people reach a critical understanding of the world around them, is a real difference they can make in the world, a good thing. And then the things I study, where ignorance of social forces only contributes to people letting themselves be ruled by them, to discrimination and psychological pain and violence, and I long to see people be more independent than that. And it seems like there are very few ways to be more independent, and one of them is related to education, to learning to stop and think critically about these things. That's why I care. And I'm not saying that everyone has to, or even that you have to, but it's why I have to care.

I know you do think about ideas in different ways, and if you're happy with the Foreign Service, I wouldn't tell you not to do what makes you happy.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's the metaphor of plane crashes. But I like to work in metaphors rather than in terms of the larger forces - it just makes it easier for me.

I don't understand most or any of the quotes you post, which makes it hard for me to really get much out of it.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

"I'm not you, and I can't be."

Exactly.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I am kind of saying that ideas killed my father. Not ideas themselves, but how he handled those ideas. Obviously it all comes down to how you wield ideas.

It's clearly better to care and be engaged with life in general no matter how. I guess I just don't like feeling judged and looked down upon.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I don't think 'it's too complicated' is really a valid excuse for not thinking about something. But I think things are more complicated than I understand, too. I haven't thought about as many of the things that you think about as a poli sci major, or that you mention here. I wish I understood those things better. I feel like saying that thinking about something "would break your head" is more condescending to yourself than anything I would say.

But thinking only about concrete things means you end up reaching wrong conclusions. You have to use 'horizontal' and 'vertical' thinking together to reach anything more true...

I don't expect you to do anything, and I know we're not the same person, but I guess I didn't realize that you thought you "can't make sense" of things on the "bigger scale". I mean, by all means, define the argument on your own terms, but they sound like terms that I think are unproductive, because my interest is in reaching something more true, and so I can't participate other than to disagree, and then I piss you off. And so I don't know what else to say. I can't argue on your terms. I could try, and it's not even that I think I'm incapable of thinking that way, or that it's somehow ingrained in my personality not to, although it would be difficult because I'm not in the habit of doing it, but I simply have no desire to, because I have yet to see the value in not talking about the "big ideas", if that's what you're suggesting.

Oh, I think politicians are probably a bit crazy too, but then, I think insanity is culturally defined as what's "abnormal" or "deviant" in mental behavior. And then I'd want to find the pattern that would drive people of certain mental persuasions to politics. Habits are irrational, and it's a large part of how people function...even habits of thought. I'm not saying I see insanity as insignificant. But my drive would be to explain it. Which doesn't mean I can't also find it amusing.

Anyway, it's your life, do what you will.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I like metaphors that help explain the larger forces...

sorry, that's probably my fault.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Then why do you want me to respond otherwise?

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Caring about ideas and seeking truth are not one and the same thing. As for your father, I don't know, obviously.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I clearly crossed a line between expressing that I disagree w/ what you're saying and seeming to look down on you as a person. I still don't think I do the latter. Maybe (an insane?) part of me feels like you deserve better, because I expect more out of life. But that's not the same as looking down on you.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I don't know either, not completely, and I never can. And in a lot of ways finding out more has made me more anxious than not knowing anything (and being free to invent my own preferred narrative for his life/person).

Well... it is looking down on me, because I believe in freedom of choice, and it's looking down on my decisions. That's actually more what I mean actually, like you think I can do better and that I'm wasting my brain being in the Foreign Service or something. I really don't think I am, because I think (arrogantly) that I would be useful to people in the Foreign Service, and I feel like I could actually make a difference to US policy there. I don't really have any ambition of being an Ambassador or whatev, I just want to be a great Pol/Econ officer in hardship posts and I want to campaign for aid and send people to study in America and advise the government on how not to fuck things up even more.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I don't.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Oh, I get what you're saying. Yeah, that's why I'm thinking I just shouldn't post things that are likely to invite arguments.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

My point was that beliefs are the sort of ideas you're talking about, that can be more or less informed, and the belief I'm talking about is in the importance of Enlightenment itself.

I believe in freedom of choice too, and it's not even you wanting to be in the Foreign Service that bothers me. That seems good, precisely because you "could actually make a difference to US policy there," and I think you have every right to be arrogant about thinking you could be useful there. It's that somehow you seem to be saying that in order to do this you should give up caring about "big ideas" and so on. I don't see why you want to do that. And I know you keep saying it relates to your father, but I can't help thinking that we're talking about different things.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

and if disagreeing with someone's decisions is the same as looking down on them as a person, then i think we're all arrogant fucks, because i don't really see how you can go through life agreeing with everyone's decisions.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I would rather not respond than have you censor yourself...