A Campaign of Indifference

We have made a grievous mistake. We have been shouting—spread feet, raised fists, chapped lips—in our opponent’s own language. He yelps back, gathering the scraps of vocabulary that we toss his way—hegemony, hierarchy, domination, imperialism—and he licks them up like a dog. But what have we done to make him understand that these rotten remnants of progressive civilization are corrupt? That which we cast off as trash is another man’s treasure—a bigger man’s treasure. A master of the alchemy of politics, he hoards the leaden millstones of a sinking society and transforms them into capitalist gold. Do we not only fuel his economy with our words? To him, imperialism is not barbarism parading as humanism—it is capital. Hegemony is not depravation—he translates it as power.

It is a curious phenomenon that criticism is perhaps an even stronger motivation than praise. Success in the face of disapproval is the greatest revenge. Biography tells us that every triumph, for it to amount to anything in the public eye, is sullied by dissent: the English teacher who told the aspiring author that she was a horrid speller; the doctor who told the terminally ill patient that he would never overcome his malady; the taunting football player who pissed on the tennis shoes of the computer geek in the locker room. Our heroes need a battle, scars, a ribbon, a medal, a near-death experience in a country far away, and a mother back home begging them not to go. Otherwise, success, survival, and the overcoming of odds would hardly count.

In the same way that our heroes’ obstacles seem to legitimize their successes, we have a curious human tendency to validate others based on the Skeletons in their Closet. I use George W. Bush for a contemporary example. It has never ceased to baffle me that the American populous could so unabashedly overlook their 43rd president’s unquestioningly average academic success. No, perhaps overlook is not the correct word, for we have ministries and commissions and committees to uncover all pitfalls of a politician’s past life, especially for a position as important of that of the president. Americans simply disregarded the fact that history and biography both quite clearly indicate George W. Bush’s dangerous mediocrity.

But why concentrate on Mr. Bush’s average grades at Yale and Harvard when the American mass media offers us a plethora of much more tantalizing Skeletons to uncover than our former president’s C’s in college? Instead, we spread the legs of our public figures and prod about, searching for scandal, adultery, sex tapes, indecent exposure, or kinky bedroom secrets. Our politicians panties are much more transparent than our government’s policies.

Are we so saturated with superficial scandal that we fail to recognize the sweeping corruption that so characterizes our government and its dignitaries? Again, I do not think this is a matter of ignorance. Instead, it is a symptom of a rather simple psychological phenomenon: the aforementioned glorification of the Skeleton in the Closet. In the brief period of my life when I regularly attended a Pentecostal church (an experience worth exploring more in depth in a separate avenue), Sins and Skeletons became synonymous. In one of the first services I attended at Christian Harbor Church, Pastor recited from the pulpit an exhaustive catalog of his personal Skeletons: drug, alcohol, and porn addiction, licentiousness, covetousness, and depression. The congregation cheered and hollered. Just look how far he’d come! The congregation commiserated with their pastor on their respective Sins, awed over his apparent success in combating these demons, and left the service with hope renewed and faith restored. If he could do it, they could too.

So let us put these too phenomenon—the compelling power of criticism and the curious case of the Skeletons in the Closet—and put them back into the context of our original subject: the politician. It is interesting to see just how many of our politicians have admitted to using drugs, to abusing alcohol, to skipping class in college, to having extramarital affairs. We criticize, yes, of course we do. But as detailed above, this judgment only bolsters the counterargument. “Yes, I admit,” says the politician (hypothetically), “to having used recreational marijuana on occasion during my university years. But,” he goes on to say, “as I matured and critically evaluated my past decisions, the experience has only fortified and refined my conviction that drugs, be they recreational or not, are utterly detestable and should remain prohibited in this great country of ours.” (Aww, cmon!)

And so our criticism, valid as it may be, bolsters his perhaps affected rebuttal. Without appearing overtly condescending, he brings himself down to our level, saying quietly that he has made the same mistakes as we do, he has experienced the same pitfalls that we stumble into, and he has understood our suffering. How Christ-like. He makes an appeal to our intellect, trusting that in our maturity, we too will understand the evils of drugs (or socialism, or alcohol, or welfare, or rebellion, or various other values too liberal for the refined mine). And lastly, he invokes patriotism, proclaiming that to be a productive member of society, we too much share his views and values. Feeling self-actualized and self-important, we rise to our feet and applaud.

Although I had not intended to discuss counterculture, an opportunity for a useful aside conveniently presents itself. Consider the word itself; it linguistically implies its opposite, making an arbitrary distinction between what is generally recognized as culture and its antithesis. Let us return to the example given above: the politician who (hypothetically) publicly admits to having partaken in recreational marijuana. Sitting on the boardwalk that skirts between culture and counterculture, he dipped his toes into the tempting waters below. He gazed into the waters to catch his own reflection and he fell in love. But a learned scholar as he was, he did not fall into the trap of Narcissus; instead, he took a step back, as to admire his reflection from a fuller angle. And from there, on his pedestal, his pulpit, his pillar, his stage, he began to preach, stronger than ever.

The fundamental defect of this dichotomous model is that both extremes mutually support one another. The waters of counterculture only reflect the color of the sky, after all. Just as a rebel without a cause is a no-good rebel, the politician’s platform is incomplete without his denunciations. The two extremes push and shove, shout and curse, point fingers and accuse. Where are we left after this perpetual battle of tug of war? With abraded palms and hoarse voices from screaming across a chasm we can’t bring ourselves to cross.

What option are we left with? We have shown how success in the face of criticism is the greatest triumph of them all, and that Skeletons in the Closet are little more than political toys. What has established itself as culture’s antithesis is simultaneously a reflection and a negation of its rival. I am tempted to propose a campaign of indifference and absenteeism. There is nothing more detestable than apathy. Instead of offering words of encouragement or words of dissuasion, offer no words at all. What motivation will the soldier departing for war have if his mother ceases to weep? The elimination of excited emotion and criticism quite effectively quenches fiery rebuttals.

But the practice of silent defiance and absenteeism is a very precarious one. Who is to say that in the absence of the dissenters, protestors, and critics, the void they leave behind will not be filled by the politicians and their propaganda? Will not the politicians’ propaganda grow even louder to make up for the silence of the critics? I worry that indifference makes us more vulnerable than ever. They have not been taking heed to our loud protests; we have only been shouting back in their own language. I’m curious as to when exactl, they would hear our silence.

I am afraid that this leaves us little farther than before. I am tangled in a paradox where our words cease to say anything at all, yet where silence, although impregnated with significance and purpose, leaves us defenseless. Where do we go from here?