The constructed legal neologism 'Islamophobia' is a misnomer on many levels, but most importantly it is an equivocation that represents the shift from religion to race, turning offences against it into racism.
In the humorless, pathological personality cult that is the Obama campaign, all supporters had to to do was reverse the mechanism to morph satire and caricature - in fact all criticism of the Obama couple - into something morally equivalent to blasphemy.
In postmodernism the process from presidential candidate to a pseudo religious being-of-light against whom all offence is a sacrilege, is an easily constructed fallacy. Matt Purple looks at the new taboo in "Liberal Blogosphere: Satire of Obama is Unacceptable." "First they went after Saturday Night Live. Then Jon Stewart got blasted. Now left-wing blogs are attacking the New Yorker for satirizing Barack Obama and his critics on the cover of their most recent issue."
Postmodern relativists have made the corruption of definitions and the conflation of unequal concepts the centerpiece of the war on reality. The result is an ideological hotchpotch, which is the essence of the mess we find ourselves in today.
Here's an excerpt from the chapter The World of Paradoxymora and Other Mythical Creatures from the as yet unpublished tome "The Dystopia of Paradise."
In positing there is no such thing as truth, relativism reveals two inherent contradictions which renders its tenets invalid:
- in terms, in stating the truth that there is no truth;Relativism is an ideological hell-hole infested with such contradictions, made acceptable and fashionable in speculative-philosophical circles by the anti-modernists Kant and Hegel (see also the Introduction to "The Dialectics"). Further investigations produce a host of other infestations: discrepancies, inconsistencies, as well as paradoxymora lurking under every stone; realivori, and objectiraptors pouncing at every turn.
- which in turn implies the validity, that Relativism itself is false.
Relativism is an oxymoron that causes serious cognitive as well as psychological damage. Those affected confuse fact with opinion, people with ideas, public opinion with truth, religion with parliamentary democracy, it undermines self-esteem, crushes morality, causes tolerance of the intolerant and turns tolerance into intolerance, confuses criticism with offences against etiquette (and now blasphemy and racism), reality with myth, truth with delusion, and equal with identical; it polarizes, and leads to making moral choices on the basis of other people's opinions; it leads to malignant Narcissism and severe egocentrism, but other than that, it's perfectly rational ...
Related video material:
- Satire explained to the unwashed
- Colbert takes on The New Yorker
- Filed on Articles in "The Pomo White House"-
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4 comments:
Relativism is an oxymoron that causes serious cognitive as well as psychological damage. Those affected confuse fact with opinion, people with ideas, public opinion with truth, religion with parliamentary democracy ...
Classic, beautifully put and like all scholars, I'm going to steal it.
Things will change, change is good. I just wish Barack would change the bloody record.
What exactly is the connection between Obama supporters and the widespread, pathological relativism that you denounce? Do you argue that Obama supporters are generally relativistic on the basis of the fact that a number of media sources (3 are listed) were "attacked" for criticizing Obama? How does that even work? Maybe I don't understand...
What I see going on is much more simple--and not nearly as interesting--as your analysis. The American people, frustrated after 8 years of the Bush Administration, really do want a change, and Obama is capitalizing on this fact while running a campaign of unprecedented success. What you describe as a "pathological personality cult" is nothing more than a campaign message working properly. With some room for exception, I don't think that Obama supporters are any more mindless/cultlike than the supporters of any other campaign. In all cases, actual policy analysis is insignificant for campaigns. The American people are not policy analysts, and on both sides in any election, the majority of voters are unlikely to be capable of defending specific policy positions of their candidate (their knowledge of policy is extremely basic, generally based on campaign rhetoric as well). I don't expect that YOU fit this generalization; indeed, those who run political blogs in their free time are certainly well above average in knowledge of policy, as are any people reading. But this is atypical. Most people base their decisions based on percieved values and based on campaign messages which are beaten into their heads, and if that makes people mindless or cultlike, then you ought to apply these terms more broadly to the American people.
Keep in mind that some of the issues you raise about crying "racism" might be somewhat grounded in reality. Though it's certainly inaccurate to describe Obama's opponents as generally racist, to claim that racism is not a significant issue in America (and not a significant factor affecting voting habits) is laughable, or at least naive and idealistic.
By the way, I'm an Obama supporter who thought the New Yorker cover was hilarious. Just because the whiners made the most noise doesn't make them representative...
--David
Dear David,
You are missing the philosophical point. Read again ... hint: what is pragmatism? See also here: http://politeia-dbase.blogspot.com/2008/01/political-pathology-page.html
Good luck!
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