By Gary Alan Fine, March 9th, 2011 
Last week Pope Benedict XVI brought delightful news for the Jews. In his new book the pope personally exonerated Jews for being responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, denying that Jews shared collective guilt for the death of Their Lord. In this, he reiterated the repudiation of collective guilt by the Vatican, nearly fifty years ago, in 1965. On this matter, at least, there is to be no retreat.
Those of us who can remember the earlier repudiation will also remember the brilliant conniptions of Lenny Bruce. As Bruce admitted, “Alright, I’ll clear the air once and for all, and confess. Yes, we did it. I did it, my family. I found a note in my basement. It said: “We killed him, signed, Morty.” Tonight Morty can rest serenely.
The debate over Jewish complicity in the death of Christ, in contrast to the complicity of certain Jews, is a matter of no small significance, even if, as Bruce slyly commented the statute of limitations should be running out. Ultimately the issue is not about Jews and Jesus, but about the assignment of blame for creating a climate of violence.
When I teach freshmen, I begin my seminar on Scandal and Reputation by explaining to these students that sociology is the most dangerous of disciplines. We are the academic subject that through its very birthright trades in stereotypes. Our lineage demands that we discuss race, class, and gender. We do not – or do not only – talk about one black barber, a wealthy stockbroker, a woman of ill-repute, or some malevolent rebbe. Our call is to talk about people, and not persons. Social psychologists push the discipline to gather data from persons, but we analyze what we gathered as if it came from people.
This means that when Jared Lee Loughner went on a shooting rampage, we asked how he got that way. And when Jesus was nailed, we ask who is responsible for a climate of crucifixion. As a sociologist, . . .
Read more: Jesus, King, and Collective Guilt
By Gary Alan Fine, March 1st, 2011 
Half a century ago, Tom Lehrer, our iconic musical satirist, paid ironic tribute to National Brotherhood Week. In introducing his cracked paean to tolerance, Lehrer asserted that ‘I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that.’ His grievance is all too common. We have resided for some time in an age that frets about hate speech, but when does distaste become hatred? And is sharp and personal talk bad for the polity? The shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords temporarily invigorated the debate over civility, but such moments have a way of not lasting. That was so January. Biting discourse draws attention and motivates both supporters and opponents.
In the immediate aftermath of the Tucson killings, some on the left focused their attention on those in the Tea Party who expressed vivid – and yes, offensive – animus for President Obama. There surely are those whose colorful language hides an absence of mindfulness. But, as conservatives knew well, their time for grievance would come soon. After all, we have a United States senator who titled his literary effort, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. And there was the backbench Democrat from Memphis who compared Republican tactics to Nazi propaganda. Hitler would have George Soros’ wealth if he could receive a tiny royalty for each use of his name or image.
Even more dramatic is the boisterous crowd of teachers on the mall in Madison, Wisconsin. Protesters are fighting for collective bargaining rights, and in the process compare their newly elected governor, Scott Walker, to Hosni Mubarak and worse. Others will judge the justice of the Badgers’ cause, but who has taught these demonstrators about the villains of history? By the way, as an Illinois resident, I welcome the fleeing Democratic state senators and urge them to pay our newly increased income tax, part of which will go to teachers’ pay.
The question is how concerned should we be with Governor Walker’s and President Obama’s detractors? What is hate speech? Is it just . . .
Read more: Hate Speech or Biting Political Provocation?
By Robin Wagner-Pacifici, January 20th, 2011
In these past few days, I have read and heard many responses to President Obama’s speech at the memorial service at the University of Arizona, including that of Jeff Goldfarb here at Deliberately Considered. While I agree with many of the encomiums to that speech – praise for its sincerity, civility, appeal to democracy, appreciation for individual lives – I am in a distinct minority in feeling that it was not altogether successful as a moment of high and consequential political rhetoric.
It was not the Gettysburg Address. Of course, it may seem unkind to compare Obama’s speech to that one of the ages by Lincoln, but I believe the tasks of that speech were similar to those of Lincoln and that it fell short of the mark. Public ceremonies of this type have unique challenges – memorialize the victims of violence, appeal to the better angels of the nation, re-establish the authority of the state, indicate a way forward.
The main issues involve choices of genre and structure. For me, Obama’s speech oscillated without adequate accounting or warning between the genres of private lamentation, religious homily, and political oration. Without an overarching structure that linked these genres together, their coming and going unsettled me as a listener. Was so much reference to scripture appropriate in a civil ceremony? Was so much detail about individual personalities befitting a national oration by a head of state?
The speech caused me to reflect on prior moments of national traumas that challenged leaders to make sense through collective reckoning. Traumas like wars and assassinations that resonate upwards, from individuals through families and communities, to the larger social and political collectivity call forth formal responses by heads of state. And these responses transform the traumas into history. Hegel linked history itself to the state: “It is the State [he wrote] which first presents a subject-matter that is not only adapted to the prose of History, but involves the production of such History in the very progress of its own being.” The state thus views itself as the central character of history, with an agency and a . . .
Read more: The Tuscon Speech: Not the Gettysburg Address
By Laura Pacifici, January 18th, 2011
Laura Pacifici is a senior at Brown University concentrating in Political Science. A contributor to an international publication, Voices, she is particularly interested in domestic policy issues and has a forthcoming article on the criminal justice system. After graduating in May 2011, Laura plans on a career in law and politics. Jeff
Almost as quickly as the news media insinuated that vitriolic political rhetoric contributed to Jared Loughner’s killing spree in Tucson, these same reporters and commentators were sharply criticized for having pointed to political explanations. While David Brooks and others such as Charles Blow in their most recent columns were disturbed by these developments, I am not surprised that the news media all but ignored –as Brooks pointed out– psychological explanations in its quest to understand Loughner’s act. This, I believe, is a result of the fact that increasingly we are turning to political commentators such as Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly and away from Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams to deliver our news.
In relying more on “news commentators” and less on traditional “news broadcasters”, we have contributed to the merging of “news” and “commentary.” Commentators on the left and the right know what their niche and partisan viewers expect of them; their task is to fulfill these expectations. This leads to a creative, if unfortunate interaction: Major events come with a prepackaged political bent. It is no surprise that, burdened by the demands of the 24-hour news cycle, these commentators would respond to an event like the massacre in Tucson using politically based explanations.
The news media is not immune from our polarized political climate. Nor is it immune from the increasingly inflammatory rhetoric used by today’s partisans to smear their opponents. Jeff Goldfarb in his recent post discussed the nature of this rhetoric. He pointed to the relentless use of the term “Obamacare” as a modern-day example of what Orwell in his canonical 1984 called “newspeak”, which Goldfarb describes as a language that conceals and manipulates rather than reveals.
By tuning in night after night to the Keiths and the Bills, to the MSNBCs and the . . .
Read more: The Media and the Motivations of an Assasin
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, January 14th, 2011
Barack Obama is the foremost orator in my life time. During the Presidential campaign, I thought that this may be the case. The first two years of his Presidency raised some doubts. I knew the talent was there, but would the talent be used effectively to enable him to be the great President that I thought he could and hoped he would be? But after his speech at the Memorial Service for the Victims of the Shooting in Tucson, Arizona, I have no doubt. No other public figure could have accomplished what I think President Obama accomplished last night.
He spoke as the head of state, not as a partisan candidate or leader, and a deeply divided country became, at least momentarily, united in response to his beautifully crafted and delivered address. He enabled us to grieve together, helped us try to make sense together, and challenged us to respectfully act together, despite our differences.
The power of the speech was revealed by the reaction to it. Even Glenn Beck recognized Obama’s accomplishment, and publicly thanked the President for giving the best speech of his career. And the instant analysis of the panel at Fox News praised the excellence and effectiveness of the President’s inspirational address. Charles Krauthammer concluded the discussion, recognizing that the President appeared and spoke as the head of state, not as an ideological politician, and maintained that it may have a significant effect on Obama’s fortunes. “I am not sure it’s going to have a trivial effect on the way he is perceived.” This from one of Obama’s major critics.
Of course Obama’s supporters, including most of the people attending the service in Tucson at the vast McKale Memorial Center at the University of Arizona, were deeply moved. My friends and I at the Theodore Young Community Center were especially pleased that our guy did so well.
And the commentators of the major newspapers and blogs were almost universally in agreement of the speeches inventiveness and excellence. Dionne, Robinson, Thiessen , Gerson at the Washington Post , Collins and the Times editorial voice at The . . .
Read more: The President’s Speech
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