Okay, more distractions.
Via Political Wire, I read this quote from Dan Pfeiffer, White House Communications Director, about Dick Cheney’s preposterous comments earlier in the day (basically: “why does Obama hate America? Doesn’t he know we’re at war?”)
To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President.
Am I the only one who finds this to be an incredibly stupid response?
Let me really boil it down. In essence he said: This Administration is interested in action, not in rhetoric which emphasizes danger in order to create divisions. And Cheney should be ashamed of himself for accusing us of this in a time of WAR.
Pot? Kettle?
I know, I know, he’s trying to say that the administration doesn’t exaggerate the threats – which isn’t precisely what he then proceeds to do. But still…c’mon.
Anyways, if I were going to rank my top 100 issues that the government should concern itself with, terrorism *might* make the list. Obviously, it’s something they’ve got to deal with it, but it’s really a tremendously small problem. The people who die from terrorists attack are dead, and that’s a tragedy, obviously. But I don’t really grasp why their deaths are more tragic than those who die from global warming, or lack of health care, or homelessness, or dirty needles, or drunk driving, or AIDS, or any other preventable issue.
Given this, I was really proud of the Obama administration when they just quietly went along with their business and didn’t act like the whole world was ending because a small and relatively incompetent organization was trying to attack us. This country’s obsession with terrorism is depressing and stupid, and I liked the idea of an administration that wasn’t going to lose its mind.
And then, the media narrative became “OMG why aren’t they worried about TERRORISM!!!!11” and they totally caved. Lame.
I guess I chose to focus on the "architect of those policies" part of the closing sentence, i.e "we haven't had time to change your playbook, so if anyone is at fault blah, blah, blah, plus: you're evil."
Because terrorism scares the shit out of people. it's a logical fallacy, maybe, considering all the other deaths, but the mere idea of someone killing a mass of other people has become very real and we feel more security knowing that we're safe from it than things that may be more in our control. That's just why it's such a big deal, and should be, I think.
And while I agree with the first point you were making about the response it's impossible to put issues we're more in "control" of on a level playing field with those potential catastrophic events that we are not.
Though I'm happy you bring up this argument, because I think a lot of interesting points can be made and can come out of it for the positive of the other tragic things you mentioned. They are obviously just as important, my point is just that you can't measure the emotional impact on the same balance.
Hope I didn't ramble too much…
(As for music, love your year end album list, but I can't believe you got me to listen to Banner Pilot – so not my style haha. I'm too easily persuaded by your rhetoric 😉
Yeah. I probably should have phrased that differently. I totally get why it works that way. There's tons of psychological research on this stuff, even.
Still, I think it's an example of irrationality which we are capable of accounting for. When we know that we have a tendency to overreact to X kind of problem, it behooves us to steel ourselves, and remember to not freak out.
It's not just because we tend to do horrible, horrible things when we overreact. See for example: the Iraq war, torture, genocide, etc. Obviously that stuff matters a lot. But it's also because our disaster-centric way of thinking lets us ignore far more important issues. Most problems in the world are small-grained. They happen in the daily lives of five billion people who don't have amenities we take for granted. They happen between individual people. They aren't characterized by explosions and catchy phrases; they're just expressed as vacancies.
To some extent, it's biological or 'natural' to de-prioritize that stuff. But that doesn't mean it's set in stone. We can do better. And we should try.
I'm curious if Banner Pilot changes your mind at all. It's a great example of the genre but I don't really think it's persuasion material.