Top 5 reasons I'm glad I didn't watch the Obomney debate
- Princess Bride alert - I think that word does not mean what you think it means: I have a friend who was on debate teams in high school and college. He won awards, teaches debate technique to kids now - he's serious about the art of debate, and has been for over a decade. Having caught some of last night's festivities, he declared, 'I feel dumber now than I was an hour ago, just from watching that.' And: 'My students would eat these guys alive.' And: 'If that's a debate, then I spent 13 years learning something very different.'
- I enjoyed alternate programming: Watching the Green Party's Jill Stein and the Justice Party's Rocky Anderson answer the same questions as Obomney during Democracy Now's video-annotated broadcast of the debate was fascinating. From the bits I saw (I couldn't watch the whole thing because that would have meant watching Obomney too - video-annotated, remember), these two weren't as polished, but they seemed like humans, and like they hadn't been focus-tested to death, and like they hadn't agreed in advance not to talk with care about anything important, or to avoid talking to anyone outside a narrow sphere of ideological overlap. Stein won the politics (calling for a Green New Deal), but Anderson had the best line: 'I think the American people deserve to hear from candidates other than the ones who've been approved by Wall Street.'
- I caught up on my reading: Robin Kelley's biography of Thelonious Monk is really, really good.
- I learned something about nature: A friend hosted a social media conversation about a horrifying (but strangely lovely) creature called a cow-ant or velvet ant, which is apparently a wingless wasp that can, no joke, kill a freakin' cow. This proves that nature is out to get us, but is interesting nonetheless. Much more interesting than waiting for Mittens to aim and fire his 'zingers,' or for Barry to remember what comes after the 'um,' or for the moderator to embarrass journalists everywhere. (Ok, I watched a little.) And, finally...
- This is not a sport, but it would stink even if it were: This picture (copied below in case the link fails) from upworthy perfectly captures the way we've reduced what should be an emblem of democratic deliberation, if not really an example of it, to sports-style handicapping and punditry. This was more football game than horse race - Cleveland vs. Jacksonville in the Futility Bowl.
The whole affair and its after effect made me throw up a little in my mouth. Tragically the media seems to confuse a debate with the WWE. Answering questions, clarifying positions and explaining policy seems has no traction compared to insistent cries of "No I didn't" (as rebuttal), flop sweat desperation read as passion and the bullying of tired old men. My god (sigh).
ReplyDeleteI can't argue with #s 3 and 4, as there are almost always better or more interesting things to do-- AN ANT THAT CAN KILL A COW!!-- but I think 1, 2 and 5 are good reasons *to* watch the debates. If we choose to look away from what's wrong with an (exclusively) two-party system, the reduction of our political discourse to sound-bites (and lies), the lack of facility with the fundamental rules of logical argumentation that our leaders demonstrate, the hyper- and over-determination of nuanced political platforms and the, in general, dumbing-down of processes of collective deliberation about matters of vital importance to all of us... well, then, I suppose we deserve whatever we get.
ReplyDeleteThanks Doctor J. But I can get all that without burning 90 minutes in front of the tv throwing up in my mouth. No?
ReplyDeleteSo yes, I guess it is good that the debates are broadcast. And someone should watch, in case they didn't get enough sound bytes and shoddy reasoning and outright lies from the 24-7 horserace news. But for me, gimme the cow ant over that dreck any day.
ReplyDeleteThe real tragedy is that those radio waves will travel for hundreds of thousands of years into the cosmos, representing our species to any civilization with radio wave receivers. That and "Amos and Andy" broadcasts. Sigh.
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