Not Getting It . . . The Continuing Story by KTK

So small parts of the world are in an uproar over reports that His Royal Goofballness Prince Harry of What’s Left of The British Empire videotaped himself, back at their officers’ academy, calling one of his Army mates a “Paki”. I gather that’s a neutral term in some countries, but regarded as an ethnic slur in England (which, in fact, I did not know, but he surely should have). Over at the Althouse sandbox, they’re falling over themselves congratulating the stupid git for not being “PC”, which is predictable enough for them. More than that, though, they’re now expressing satisfaction that this incident, and the avalanche of ethnic slurs used in the Clint Eastwood film Gran Torino, have now made racist slurs OK again – something that, apparently, Althouse and her crew have long been waiting for. To her credit, Althouse herself calls out the film for legitimizing racist language, but then quotes one of her own commenters:

I think you’re right about Gran Torino making a case for racial language in general. Having the character talk like that to everyone, people he liked and didn’t like, people of his own race and not, sort of popped the bubble that these words should have special, almost magical, powers to offend.

Free at last, thank God almighty, white people are free at last to talk like racists while imagining that the fact that they don’t care about ethnic slurs means they’re not offensive to their targets either. (Clint Eastwood: “We used to stack gooks like you five high, over in Korea, and use ‘em as sandbags!” Yes, it would obviously take some sort of voodoo magic for anybody to be offended by that! Luckily, Eastwood broke the spell.)

The word ["Paki"] has been turned into a keepsake for the young British Pakistani community that is not acceptable for someone outside the community to say it, including Indians and Bangladeshis.

Similar to other “high grievance” cultures like blacks and liberal hip-hop white “wiggers” saying they have proprietary rights to “nigger”, or “niggah” or “niggaz” – and “outsiders” don’t, unless granted specific permission by a Head Negro….

The “Paki” word is in common use by Indians and Bengalis that have less than fond memories of Paks residing there. “Goat fucker” is another useful nickname for Pakistanis in Bangadesh.

See?! “Paki” is in common use by ethnic groups that hate Pakistanis – just like “goat fucker”! Why would they possibly take exception to such common terms?! They must be a “high grievance” culture, just like blacks who don’t like the word “nigger”. Where do they get so uppity?

John McCain still calls his jail guards “gooks” claiming that was the name they were called when he was there, and that is the name he still calls them by.

Don’t they get it? You’re entitled to be a racist now, if you were a racist then. The racists are the real victims, because for part of one generation they were asked to stop letting their feelings out and kowtow to all that PC “politeness” and “decency” crap. Luckily, that’s over now. Aggrieved war veterans (fictional, if possible) are particularly invited to reopen 50-year-old hostilities, because the last thing we want to do is stop fighting wars from the Eisenhower years, let alone Vietnam, the gift that keeps on giving.

All the stupidity aside, what prompted me to comment on this post is the clunkiness and ineptness of the kind of thinking displayed here. This whole discussion seems to me to embody a particularly damaging mode of thought that I think is especially characteristic of right-wingers (though not unknown on the left as well). That is the insistence on either/or categorical thinking – the idea that everything has to be either good or bad, and the fact that it is bad (or good) in some salient part means you don’t have to think about it any further – it thereby can’t be good (or bad) in any other sense. This functions as both a mental stumbling block, for the unwitting, and as a rhetorical tool, for dishonest ideologues.

So, people who just can’t bring themselves to imagine that a situation could be complicated or multivalent, that it could be evaluated as a mixture of many different qualities or kinds, simply stop thinking when they’ve discovered some part of a situation that fits a category they recognize; the entire situation evaluates as belonging to that category, because obviously part of it does and nothing is ever mixed or compounded of parts that are different in the relevant way. Their thinking is done when they recognize the first and most attention-getting category, and slot the whole thing away under that label. And, of course, those who are capable of more insightful comprehension may still find it useful to address every issue in Manichean terms, because those terms will motivate and indoctrinate the others who are more easily misled by them. Thus, the Palestinian cause evaluates as “terrorism”, because some Palestinian partisans have used terrorism and that is the most salient category of classification available. Arguments that might be made for the Palestinian cause, distinct from its tactics, are “justifications for terrorism”, because the cause itself is and only is “terrorism” – the cause is indistinguishable from its tactics; issues that are relevant to Palestine but do not focus on terrorism are “apologies for terrorism”, because they distract from the one and only main issue; criticizing crimes or excesses committed by Israel is a “sympathizing with terrorists” or “drawing a moral equivalence with terrorism”, because the opponents of Israel are all and only “terrorists” and their cause is “terrorism”. For some, it is impossible to see beyond legitimate criticisms arising from one part of a complex situation to acknowledge other parts, competing principles, or multiple problems to be solved. For others, it is convenient to continually beat the drum of one and only one aspect of an issue, ensuring that those who cannot see more than one thing at a time will thus never see the other aspects of that issue, and especially that there can be right, of some kind, on the side of those who also do wrong of some kind.

Remember when the GOP relentlessly mocked Al Gore for having used the word “nuance”? Some of them were dumb enough actually to think that way, and some were smart enough to be glad their fellows were dumb enough.

As for this nonsense at Althouse, I suspect most of them are dumb enough to believe what they are saying. But it is a perfect example of the kind of unilateral, categorical thinking I described. Eastwood’s character in Gran Torino is the hero of the movie – a crusty, obnoxious old man who reluctantly gets involved in the problems of his neighbors, Asian immigrants whom he despises, but who are being picked on by a gang of young Asian thugs, simply because he knows it’s the right thing to do. At the beginning of the movie, he is reflexively racist – he can’t stand their looks, their language, their food, their customs, or anything else, and he thinks the Asian influx is ruining his formerly white working-class neighborhood. As he slowly gets to know them, he can’t help liking them as individuals, and gradually grows attached to some of them. He takes on their battles for them knowing he is putting his own life on the line, and he emerges as a true moral hero in multiple ways. But throughout it all he persists in using racial slurs, both angrily towards the Asians he dislikes, and jokingly with his white friends (in one hilarious scene, he tries to teach a young Asian teen how to “talk like a man” by coaching him in swear-words and ethnic put-downs).

The Althouse delinquents, unable to grasp more than one thing at a time, are convinced this has solved the question of racist language. The Eastwood character is a hero, and he uses racial slurs; we approve of heroes, so obviously racial slurs are acceptable. It never seems to occur to them that the character’s language is a sign of the moral distance he has to travel to arrive at the movie’s conclusion. They also don’t notice the actual fact that his use of slurs toward his neighbors diminishes (but does not disappear) throughout the movie as he gets to know them as people. (For the first and only time, he refers to one of them as his “friend” in the very last line of the movie – a line which also contains a racial slur, but this time meant jokingly, not angrily.) They seem utterly unable to grasp the concept of “flawed hero” – I suspect they lack the concept of “nuance” entirely.

It seems obvious to me that, in this movie – a truly fine film – we are expected to see how much is missing from Eastwood’s character, and how much he regains by his association with the people he at first hates. We realize that part of his animosity is just a put-on; he’s a curmudgeon who never learned decent manners, but it takes almost nothing for the charming Hmong family next door to break through all that. We are glad not only that he kicks ass on the neighborhood gangsters, but that he overcomes some of his own shortcomings on the way. It’s true to life in that he remains a very imperfect person to the end, and we’re supposed to recognize that. We’re not supposed to go around talking like him, calling Asian kids “gooks” and threatening to blow their heads off on the front lawn. We’re supposed to find ways to break through our own barriers and animosities. But the self-satisfied and gleefully indifferent Althouse kids are happy to take everything at the surface level: one thing he did was good, so that makes him “good” – they’ve found a category to stick him in and no longer need to bother to understand whatever else is going on with him. And so, because Eastwood’s character is “good”, we have an automatic categorical evaluation of everything he does – racial slurs are good, because the good character uses them; holding onto the resentments and antagonisms of a long-past war is good, because the good character does so; not caring how other people feel about how you treat them is good, because the good character eventually treats his neighbors well after first treating them badly.

There is a great danger in this form of Manichean self-absolution – the certainty that “whatever I do or say is OK if I think I have good intentions”. It arises in the first place from the conviction that some one particular, relevant form of moral good answers for all – that if you can claim some form of high ground in some significant way, that by itself repudiates any criticisms of your other behavior. And that delusion results from the refusal, or inability, to see moral situations as complicated, multi-valent, or “nuanced”. Why the right wing has elevated that to a point of pride is just another thing about them that baffles and saddens me.