By Gary Alan Fine, July 16th, 2012 
 I was sitting at my desk, listening to the nostalgic boom and bang of distant fireworks on this Fourth – a heated July evening prior to a heated Presidential election. Hearing the clatter of fierce and passionate conservatives, one might easily assume that this will be the final Independence Day in our seemingly fragile constitutional democracy. From deep Alaska, Sarah Palin opined, “If Obama is reelected, well, America, you will no longer recognize the country that today you truly love and can enjoy all of its freedom and prosperity and security.” “ObamaCare is a harbinger of things yet to come,” the governor warns darkly. Such alarms have been Glenn Beck’s stock-in-trade for some years. Rush Limbaugh has followed much the same path, musing on moving to Costa Rica. In four years, America will be France, Venezuela, or Cuba. Not Amerika with K, as the left once proclaimed, but America without the blue and its whites.
Of course, forecasts of profound transformation have been the technique of doom-laden partisans who, until the age of computer caches, could rely on the limited memory of their audience. This is not merely a trope of the right. Partisan rhetoric is often more similar than rivals would care to admit. Paranoia is bipartisan. The end is nearly near! In the weeks prior to Reagan’s election, dear friends promised to invite me to Toronto after they migrated, concluding that America would soon become a fascist regime. I never did receive those invitations. Some of those friends remained to celebrate November 2008 in Grant Park. I have wondered whether America in 2012 conforms to their dark imaginings of what America would look like from the standpoint of Reagan’s ascent.
Despite the science fiction cliché of the man who awakes after decades, the world changes slowly, even in the face of shocks to the system. The fact that gay and lesbian Americans can now marry in many states with the trend continuing is a real change, but it doesn’t create an unrecognizable America. The fact that income inequality has increased or that hunger has decreased over the past . . .
Read more: Partisan Change
By Tim Rosenkranz, June 14th, 2012 
The playoffs are almost over, the road to the finals was long, there were upsets and defining moments, but in the end the two favorites came through. They just had the most resources and the best game-plans. The two finalists will now battle it out. Many experts expect a tight series, which will probably go down to the wire. There will be a winner and a loser, there will be euphoria and disappointment. In the end the winner will take home the trophy, the loser will regroup, switch players, adjust tactics and get ready for the next season – there is always another season.
Unfortunately, I am here neither talking about the NBA nor the NFL, neither basketball glory nor football fortunes – I am describing the US-Presidential elections that will be decided in November between President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, between the Democrats and Republicans, the Red and Blue teams. Whatever form of media we choose today, the inflationary use of sport rhetoric in the coverage of politics has become hard to ignore. It is quite fascinating how similar politics and sports have become in the 24-hour news-cycle: Analysts speak of the “endgame” or “gameplan,” compare debate schedules to seasons or playoff-series, or they announce “win-or-go-home” states in Republican primaries. Exemplifying this overlap: In Martin Bashir’s show on MSNBC, analysts were discussing the ‘bracketology’ of March Madness in the Republican Primary.
One might argue that this stylistic closeness in coverage is only logical, since both, sports and electoral politics, are competitions. So what is the problem in mixing rhetoric? The problem is that we might lose the essential function of politics if we talk about it like sports, because sports are a specific form of competitive activity. In sports the competition is the end in itself, while in politics it should just be the means. The cultural critiques of the early Frankfurt School, especially Theodor Adorno in his analysis of the “Culture Industry,” already singled out sports as stylized forms . . .
Read more: Sports in Politics?
By Michael Weinman, July 21st, 2011 
While (not) sleeping with my one month old daughter on the couch in the middle of the night, sharing her experience of the latest set of what we call ‘growing pains’—those discomforts (some much more drastic than others) that inevitably arise simply from being a being that develops through time, and must so develop in order to be at all—I got to thinking about the figurative deployment of this class name in political contexts. The chronically optimistic Einstein, in December 1930, describing Nazi electoral successes as a result of “the chronic ‘childish disease of the [Weimar] Republic’” is a classic example. The sinister Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s analysis of the chaos and violence in post-invasion Iraq, in April 2003, as “‘part of the price’ for freedom and democracy” is a more recent one.
I do not mean here to assess the appropriateness of this trope. I hope only to clarify for myself, and perhaps for others, why it is that we might wish for “growing pains” to be an apt representation of such political phenomena.
To begin with the obvious: the phenomena in the face of which we aim to deploy this trope are, if not inherently noxious (as in the case of Einstein’s usage, or Rumsfeld’s), certainly of the sort that no one in their right mind would “choose for its own sake,” as Aristotle puts it so well. We look at events that, in and of themselves, we either wish would never have happened, or at least would not have wished to have happened. And, reaching for the familial and biological phenomenon of ‘growing pains,’ we try to “see the good” in such regrettable developments. Just as, we think, no one would wish for the fevers and diarrhea that accompany an infant’s first teeth, but we welcome those fevers and sleepless nights insofar as we know there is no way that this child will come to be what she was born to be without such fevers.
I would like to stress two characteristics of this metaphorical response to political phenomena: calling them . . .
Read more: Growing Pains
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, July 6th, 2011 
I recently read a student paper which I found to be quite inspiring. The author, who wishes to remain anonymous, uses Hannah Arendt to make sense of the oscillations between hope and despair in Iran. The interpretation of Arendt and its application to an ongoing political struggle remind me of my response to the democratic movement in Poland in the 80s and 90s, also informed by a fresh reading of Arendt. The author sensitively explores the potential and limitations of free public action in an authoritarian political order, highlighting the resiliency of free politics. Here are some interesting excerpts from the study. -Jeff
 The streets of Tehran had turned into free public spaces days before the 2009 Presidential Elections. The vibrant scene of groups of people with antagonistic political ideals arguing and debating with one another was truly amazing and unique. After the elections, in a spontaneous concerted act, three million people walked in silence, protesting the results of the election. Those who walked up from Enghelab (Revolution) Square to Azadi Square experienced a sacred time and space. They experienced for a few hours a power that has been engrained forever in their minds. The actors involved created a story and have “started a chain of events,” as Arendt put it in The Human Condition. While they did not walk the path of revolution to freedom, they did experience freedom when they were debating in public corners.
On the days prior to and after the elections, Iranians experienced the extraordinary, because they challenged the “commonly accepted.” They “acted in concert” and owned the streets of Tehran from which they had always felt alienated. The streets of Tehran, ever since, have gained a different meaning. They are a reminder of a moment of “greatness” that will never lose its new acquired significance. It is “greatness” because it breaks through the commonly accepted and reaches into the extraordinary. Whatever is true in common and everyday life no longer applies because everything that exists in the extraordinary is . . .
Read more: Iran: The Meaning of Free Politics
It was a funny mistake when the folks at Fox used a still of Tina Fey doing her 2008 Sarah Palin routine for their coverage of a story on the real Palin. I’m not sure if Palin’s colleagues – she actually works as a Fox commentator – are clueless, mean-spirited, or just have an interesting sense of humor, but it does make me think about the authentic and the fake.
 Wouldn’t Baudrillard have loved it? For him, it would have indicated the presence of yet more proof that actual people do suffer from hyperrealitis! According to Jean Baudrillard, consumers had long ceased to need originals. Thus, in a world where the simulated version has conquered the real, how many people will have principled issues with the mix up of the person and the parody? Or taking it one step further, how many people have concerns about the authenticity of the real Palin in the first place?
This brings me to the genuineness of political performers. During a recent show, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow served up 12 male politicians whom she placed on a “post-Clinton modern American political sex scandal consequence-o-meter.” Depending on the creepiness of their behavior and the extent to which they might be prosecuted, Maddow measured the cases of Florida Representative Mark Foley, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, Nevada Senator John Ensign, VP candidate John Edwards, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and of course, New York Representative Anthony Weiner, and a couple of others. (For more on Weiner, read Gary Alan Fine’s post.) Did all these gentlemen think they could get away with extramarital affairs, prostitution, lewd conduct, and other such activities? While some of these activities may not be downright illegal, they all reveal little or no moral standards. In many cases, the behavior was not only hypocritical, but also naïve, as the compromising position in which these politicians pushed themselves would one day trip them up. To make matters even more complicated, the hypocrisy is a common element. Among the politicians who are the most vocal about . . .
Read more: The Show Must Go On
By Michael Corey, June 7th, 2011 
This is the second post by Michael Corey in a two-part series on the use of the phrase “skin in the game.” The first part was published on June 2. – Jeff
Many in the military fear that “putting their skin in the game” will be forgotten, and some have taken steps to keep memories of their fallen comrades alive. These may be found in an old form of art, the tattoo, specifically the memorial tattoo.
Mary Beth Heffernan, a photographer and associate professor of sculpture and photography at Occidental College, documented U. S. Marine memorial tattoos on film and incorporated them into a gallery exhibit, “The Soldier’s Skin: An Endless Edition.” The exhibit was shown at the Pasadena City College Art Gallery between October 10 and November 17, 2007, which was organized in conjunction with the citywide Pasadena Festival of Art and Ideas. Marines may be a specialized form of soldier, but most Marines prefer to be thought of as Marines rather than soldiers, as referenced in the exhibit’s title. The endless edition refers to Heffernan displaying her photolithographs arranged in stacks on a floor. To me, it brings tombstones to mind. Heffernan encourages viewers to take home copies from the stack, free of charge and reflect on them.
This image of a tattoo on the back of U. S. Marine, Joshua Hall. was photographed by Heffernan on February 3, 2006. It was reproduced as a 24” x 27” poster in unlimited quantity for the show in 2007. Memorialized on dog tags, along with his grandfather and uncle who died in war, are other fallen Marine brothers in arms.
Other Heffernan images may be found on the following links: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-1027-heffernan-pg,0,5619148.photogallery?coll=la-tot-entertainment; and http://www.artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles2007/Articles1007/MBHeffernanA.html.
The cover of Heffernan’s exhibit catalog features a young girl holding a 19” x 27” poster showing the tattoo on the front of Owen McNamara’s body, taken on February 6, 2006. During his second tour in Iraq, McNamara was twenty years old. While attending a promotion ceremony, ten of his fellow Marines were killed at a booby-trapped patrol base. The tattoo which covers most of his . . .
Read more: Skin in the Game II, Never Forget
By Michael Corey, June 2nd, 2011 
This is the first post by Michael Corey of a two-part series on the use of the phrase “skin in the game.” -Jeff
‘Skin in the game’ is a widely used and imperfect aphorism of uncertain origins. The political meanings of the phrase have been used by all sides in political debates, and each side seeks to appropriate its meaning to connect with people on an informal level. The political application is relatively new compared to its application in business, finance, betting and war. ‘Skin in the game’ has become part of the rhetoric in debates on taxes, deficits and entitlements, and its use is likely to increase as the debates heat up.
‘Game’ is a metaphor for actions of all types, and ‘skin’ is a metaphor for being committed to something through emotional, financial, or bodily commitment. Skin is also a synecdoche representing the whole being. Taken together the phrase implies taking risk and being invested in achieving an outcome. The late columnist William Safire sought the origin of the phrase and didn’t resolve the issue, but he did dispel one widely held explanation. It was not the billionaire investor Warren Buffett who coined the phrase. Buffett likes executives in companies in which he invests to also have their funds, or their skin, invested in the firm. Safire learned from a money and investment specialist that the expression is much used to “convey financial risk in any kind of venture, but you could stretch it to mean some kind of emotional investment. Can you have skin in the game of your marriage? Well, you ought to.”
Ever since humans first walked the earth, our skins have been in the game as hunters, gatherers and cultivators. Over time, animal skins were used for trade and as currencies. For instance, buckskins were monetized, giving us our current buck and the use of the word skin as slang for money. The aphorism has been widely used in informal everyday language and increasingly has become popular in political speech. Safire observed in his New York Times column that ‘skin in the game’ . . .
Read more: Skin in the Game
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, April 2nd, 2011 
I probably got carried away describing President Obama’s Libya policy as a “self-limiting revolutionary solidarity approach.” I know I should be careful in applying my formative political experience to unrelated circumstances. False analogies are often foolish. They can even be dangerous. But, I drew upon my experience to express my admiration for the precision and cogency of Obama’s approach, concerned that many observers, especially my friends on the left, didn’t understand the significance of what the President is trying to accomplish. Things are very different now, and we should face these differences. But even so, the combination of realism and idealism, balancing insights into capacity and aspiration, reminded me of things past, from Gdansk, not Baghdad.
The President sought to highlight the humanitarian justification of our military involvement in Libya. He also emphasized that the involvement had to be limited. Surely, this had something to do with cold calculation about the overextension of the American military, but principle was also involved. For Libyans, Obama attempted to express support for the principle that it was for them and not for us to determine their future. And for Americans and for the rest of the world, Obama tried to make clear that in order for an international military effort to be truly international, it can’t have an American face. The U.S. not only cannot afford to be the world’s policeman. It should not be. If the world needs policing, then the world should do it, or more precisely a coalition of countries, not led by the United States. Yet what seemed clear to me was not clear to everyone, despite the President’s widely recognized eloquence. And this wasn’t only true on the left, as was demonstrated here by Gary Alan Fine in his post on Friday.
I agree with Felipe Pait’s reply to Fine’s post. I too think that Fine exaggerates. “From observing the fact that the Obama administration has cautiously decided to use limited military force in Libya to worrying about the danger of invading a dozen countries is a long jump,” Pait wrote.
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<p>Read more: <a href=") DC Week in Review: Libya and Emotional Politics
By James M. Jasper, March 30th, 2011 
As we reflect upon the dramatic political developments in North Africa and the Middle East, and as we anticipate a tough political battle in the United States about the budget and the role of government, James M. Jasper, a sociologist of social movements, emotions, and strategy, reminds us in this post and in another tomorrow that politics and public debate are not only reasoned. They also have an emotional side that must be critically understood. – Jeff
Emotions matter in politics. This is evident at home and abroad. In the last two years, we have seen American citizens shouting at their own Congressional representatives in town hall meetings, a hateful Jared Loughner attempt to assassinate his own representative, and a million Egyptians assemble in Tahrir Square and topple a repressive regime.This leads to a pressing question: What emotions matter and help mobilize political action?
A sense of threat and urgency, anger and indignation (which is morally tinged anger), sometimes a desire for revenge, and, on the positive side, hope that the dangers can be resisted – one of the most effective ways to pull these together is to find someone to blame. If there is no one to blame, collective mobilization lacks a focus. It is more likely to be the kind of cooperative endeavor we see after natural disasters: shock, but no politics. And the more concrete and vivid the perpetrators, as the case of Hosni Mubarak showed, the more focused and intense the outrage.
In such mobilization we see the “power of the negative”: negative emotions grab our attention more than positive ones. The events in Egypt and Libya suggest that the power of the negative is increased when hatred, rage, anger, and indignation are focused against one person. Most revolutionary coalitions are held together only by this outrage over the old ruler or regime. It is hard to question the mobilizing power of such feelings, whether the mobilization is for voting in elections or efforts at revolution.
But are there other ways to mobilize large numbers of people? In the US, Democrats’ electoral campaigns, and especially Obama’s, . . .
Read more: Emotions and Politics
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 21st, 2010 
When we substitute a philosophic truth for politics, as I observed in yesterday’s post on the new political correctness, both truth and politics are compromised, and in extreme form, totalitarian culture prevails. On the other hand, factual truth is the ground upon which a sound politics is based. As Hannah Arendt underscores, “the politically most relevant truths are factual.” That Trotsky could be air brushed out of the history of the Bolshevik revolution, contrary to the factual truth that he was a key figure, commander of the Red Army, second only to Lenin, is definitive of the totalitarian condition. I know we haven’t gotten to this point, but there are worrying tendencies.
Fact denial seems to be the order of the day, from fictoids of varying degrees of absurdity (Obama the Kenyan post-colonial philosopher and the like), to denial of scientific findings: including evolution, climate change and basic economics. (I can’t get over the fact that it seems to be official Republican Party policy that cutting taxes doesn’t increase deficits.)
The political consequences of denying the truth of facts are linked with the substitution of truth for politics. In order to make the contrast between the two different types of truth and their relationship with politics clear, Arendt reflects upon the beginning of WWI. The causes of the war are open to interpretation. The aggressive intentions of Axis or the Allies can be emphasized, as can the intentional or the unanticipated consequences of political alliances. The state of capitalism and imperialism in crisis may be understood as being central. Yet, when it comes to the border of Belgium, it is factually the case that Germany invaded Belgium and not the other way around. A free politics cannot be based on an imposed interpretation. There must be an openness to opposing views. But a free politics also cannot be based on a factual lie, such as the proposition that Belgium’s invasion of Germany opened WWI.
Arendt observes how Trotsky expressed his fealty to the truth of the Communist Party, in The Origins of Totalitarianism. . . .
Read more: Time to Face Facts
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DC Week in Review: Libya and Emotional Politics