Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

cthulu2016

(10,960 posts)
Tue Jan 10, 2012, 12:40 PM Jan 2012

Distortions are preferred to comparable truths

Last edited Tue Jan 10, 2012, 01:24 PM - Edit history (1)

There are 10,000 legitimalty bad things about Mitt Romney. He proposing raising taxes on the poor to fund tax cuts for the rich. That is evil and faulty macroeconomics and it is real.

But the "firing people" thing is bogus. It is grossly out of context and it's embarassing for anyone to jump on it. It is not even a "gaffe." It is a string of words taken out of context.

(It is also a string of words that, in context, reveals a poor understanding of the econmics of health care.)

If a clip of Romney saying he likes firing people "reveals a larger truth" then there must be some evidence of that larger truth that is not a lie. So why does the distortion win out over comparable truths?

When the Obama comment quoting the McCain campaign ( "if we talk about the economy we lose" ) was taken out of context it was a very, very, very bad thing because it was a lie.

If someone said that Obama clip revealed the larger truth that the economy is an electoral liability for the president I would say, "It is a fucking LIE so it doesn't reveal anything except the character of the person doing the lying."

Meeting lies with more lies is a bad thing. It is nihilism. It is Fox News.

It is not something to aspire to.

6 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies

tridim

(45,358 posts)
1. But, Mittens DOES enjoy firing people. It is a requirement to work for a company like Bain.
Tue Jan 10, 2012, 12:47 PM
Jan 2012

IMO, the Dem response to his gaffe has been just about perfect. They always mention the context before mentioning his work at Bain. The GOP can't claim it was taken out of context if the context is always mentioned.

So far the only people taking his comment out of context are REPUBLICANS.

Response to cthulu2016 (Original post)

 

Scuba

(53,475 posts)
3. Disagree. Anyone in his position uttering the words "I like firing people" is hopelessly...
Tue Jan 10, 2012, 01:20 PM
Jan 2012

out of touch with the pain being felt by so many, regardless of context.

 

JackRiddler

(24,979 posts)
4. Body language, facial expression, tone of voice, manner of speech...
Tue Jan 10, 2012, 01:58 PM
Jan 2012

character armor, choice of metaphors and symbols, choice of dress and venues, timing... in truth, these cues generally communicate more, and with greater honesty, than the literal meaning or face value of a verbal statement. Sometimes these cues serve as a code to communicate what a speaker really intends to say, without doing so in the face value statement. (It might allow pandering to one audience while plausibly denying it.) Sometimes these cues communicate truths that the speaker is not aware of communicating. We can all think of a million examples of both, dating back to our earliest memories.

To maintain the pretense of civilization, in public discourse we are supposed to respond only to face value, since -- given that discourse is about our conflicts and given our that we generally lack scruples about how we win our arguments -- we would not analyze all of the other cues with rigor and honesty, but would instead descend to misrepresenting face value and imputing motives and spinning everything on the basis of word choice or posture or someone being too loud on a microphone or our own arbitrary associations or ad hominem qualities peripheral to the face-value issue.

Come to think of it, in what passes for public discourse, that is exactly what's happening all the time.

It's a tough and paradoxical situation, since (to reiterate) it remains true that much of communication is non-verbal and that verbal communication is conducted through many more devices than face value meaning, that speakers inadvertantly reveal truths about themselves through such non-face-value cues and also that they use such cues to engage in coded communication with chosen audiences. So the world of communicative cues should matter to us, and yet considering them will always open the door to interpretative abuse, and the interpretations that prevail will usually do so because they are compelling in narrative terms, or in conformity with hegemonic opinion, and not necessarily because they are true.

So yes! You're absolutely right on the face value. Romney did not say what his attackers are now attributing to him.

Nevertheless, out of the many ways he could have said what he intended to say, the words "I like firing people" came easily to him, and in context of prior statements around firing he seems to come to the subject easily, most likely because it makes him feel insecure, since it points to one of his greatest weaknesses as a candidate.

Thus, although the interpretation now being used against him is completely wrong as a reading of his statement's face value, it almost certainly identifies an unspoken truth about him: either he really does like firing people, or, even if he doesn't, it comes easily to him, since he did a lot of firing and firing was his business model.

It seems like a cute and fitting way to hang him for something that's actually true, and it plays to the audience as a "narrative beat." Of course, if we assign too much significance to this one statement, it distorts insofar as we are not applying an equally rigorous analysis of all textual and non-textual cues outside face-value statement to all other people at all other times. It's selective.

But how the hell are you gonna stop it? I think public discourse is already too far gone (and was so already decades ago) to pretend that this isn't how the game will continue to be played, in which both truths and untruths are far more effectively conveyed not on the rational but the irrational plane, often with puzzling, irritating and surprising results.

.

dawg

(10,610 posts)
5. Yeah, but if he gives us a fat pitch like that it's our duty to hit it out of the park.
Tue Jan 10, 2012, 02:01 PM
Jan 2012

It doesn't have to be fair. I'm through with trying to be fair to Republicans.

Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts)
6. I think a political psychologist like Drew Westen might take exception to the notion
Tue Jan 10, 2012, 02:19 PM
Jan 2012

that Romney's comment was of no significance. It certainly does suggest that his "fire people" neural networks are pretty close to the top of his associative pile, and got easily pulled to the surface when he was talking about being dissatisfied with something. Firing people has always been a major tool in his corporate toolkit, and the slip shows just how strong that association is.

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»Distortions are preferred...