Speaking the Other's Language

In my past, I have prided myself on my ability to "speak woman." Which is to say, I understood that the fairer sex has a tendency to attach different connotations and layers of meaning to different words. A statement that would be perfectly innocuous to a man is fraught with portent for a woman, and vice versa. Then I managed to keep a girlfriend for more than a couple of months and discovered that I knew jack squat about the "thinking of the fairer sex", because there's really no such thing. Each person has his own bag of perception, and while tendencies can be pointed to, they need to be carefully applied to individuals.

Carrying this logic further, why has no one considered that the same word-interpretation issues apply to our political divisions? How many times has a Republican been accused of racism because he used a phrase that lefties determined to be "code" for something? We know what happens here: The GOPer loudly exclaims "I didn't say a word about race! I've never been a racist! What the fuck? Damn liberals, everything's about race to them! They're the real racists" and the lefties say "Quit blowing smoke and accept that you got tagged. Don't pretend that you aren't aware of how words can carry. You're either a closet racist or ignorant of the history of this country, and either way, shut up." Both sides walk away...convinced of what they were already convinced of before.

A deliberately vague example, because we should all be familiar with this kind of exchange, or iterations thereof. Take the word "fascist." When a Republican says it, he means something that looks like Hiter's and Mussolini's doctrines on the corporate state, complete with secret police, camps, declarations of racial pride, and the like. It's narrowly defined, and that suits the Republicans' interest, because on the face of it, no party could be more far removed from the platform of NASDAP than the GOP, which combines the laissez-faire economics of the post-Civil War era with the trad morality/Christian identity movement of the Evangelical explosion of the last few decades, both of which Hitler despised.

But when a Democrat says it, he means anybody who possesses too great a relish for military solutions to international problems and anyone who calls too fiercely for national pride and traditional morality. It's a (very) loose definition, and this suits the Democrats' interest, because it draws attention away from the fact that both Hitler and Mussolini were products of socialist traditions, both were statists who presided over vast centralization and made strides towards guarunteeing the kind of "economic security" that the left has long advocated. If you leave out the war and the genocide, Hitler looks damn progressive. Say this to a liberal though, and he'll pitch a fit.

All of which is a build-up to this post by war hawk Uncle Jimbo, who went head-to-head with one of the new favorite bete-noirs of the anti-war left, British Labor MP George Galloway. Despite the gulf of disagreement between them, they found common ground, or at least discovered an area for exchanging ideas. Here's how it was managed:

...I looked him in the eye and he said "OK, I'll let you back in" following an explanation of his statement that the planes on 9/11 didn't come out of a clear, blue sky they came out of a swamp created by western policies. My question was, given that Bin Laden's own statements contain many grievances dating to the 12th century wasn't it simplistic to consider recent actions as the cause.

Then he did it. He tagged me with a sentence that may haunt me. I saw him nodding his head during my question and it appeared he came to the conclusion that I was actually calling him fairly on a point. He began his answer saying "I'm beginning to get the impression you might be an honest man" Damn! Now he obviously meant it in a way I could appreciate and he separated me from the squads of ditto-head style wankers bludgeoning him with Nerf bats...

"Don't you think it's a bit simplistic..." is practically a shibboleth among leftie intellectuals and lefties who think they're intellectuals. It's shorthand for "There's more than one way to look at this, and I'm aware of that, and I think you should be aware of it, too." The point that UJ actually made regarding Osama's motivation isn't new, in fact, you could read it all over the ditto-head web sites in the wake of 9/11. But the wording of it made it a point that could get past Galloway's emotional armor, and thus be acceptable.

Likewise, the response "I'm beginning to get the impression you might be an honest man," is a typically British excess-of-subordinate-clauses meaning "Nicely done." So the rightie scores a point, and the leftie gets to look like a gent for scoring it for him. And the twain shall meet.

I for one am not convinced that Galloway isn't a shill for Saddam; he's a shill for the UN and the EU, anyway, who were Saddam's biggest enablers. But if even this guy can reach across the aisle when approached in the right way, then none of us are incapable. Be honest, who wants to read anymore flame templates? Can we put together a list of words and phrases to be rejected by serious debaters? Here's a few I think can be safely dispensed with:

1. "I guess you're too balled up in your ideology to understand facts."
2. "echo chamber"
3. "How sad for you to have to confront reality"
4. "talking points"
5. "the people are tired of your lies and distortion"
6. "spin"
And finally...

7. "support the troops."