Saturday, April 29, 2006
Is It OK To Laugh at Rush?
No, not the band (it would be perfectly OK to laugh at them), but Rush Limbaugh, who is in trouble again for prescription drug-related crimes. Over at Shakespeare's Sister, which has never been the most mature progressive blog, they're laughing at him. My reaction to this was that laughing at someone for having a drug problem is beyond the pale. Granted, the man is totally morally bankrupt, and there is a certain poetic justice to him having a drug problem when he's been so hypercritical of drug addicts (am I the only one who wonders whether his harshness towards drug addicts is a part of his denial of his own drug problem?), but I just can't bring myself to laugh at anyone for having a problem that can cause so much suffering. I can't imagine anyone who's been close to someone with a drug problem laughing about it either. However, in the comments at Shakespeare's Sister, no one agreed with me, and I was labeled a conservative troll for voicing my opinion. Everyone disagreeing with me, and my saying you shouldn't laugh at anyone, even a conservative, for having a drug problem, apparently makes me a conservative. Now, I don't consider myself a conservative, and I've never been called one before (pinko commie is an epithet I've heard more frequently), but maybe I'm wrong. Have Limbaugh's sins made it OK to laugh at his suffering? I can't help but feel like that position smacks of some seriously old-school Protestant ressentiment, but that could just be me. What do you folks think?
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18 comments:
I agree with you. I'm not a conservative (anarcho-syndicalist is more like it), but I find some people's attitude toward Limbaugh's drug problem slightly nauseating. As a druggie myself-- I haven't used in years, but it's a daily struggle-- I can, in some way, understand what he and his family and friends are going through. Many people in my own family have deteriorated because of drug abuse and it's not something I would wish on anyone.
Call me glib, but I think people become assholes when they let their politics get in the way of their humanity.
I most definitely agree with you. And, sadly, I see something here about American culture (not that I don't like Americans, but it's good for people in the US to get a view from abroad):
It seems to me it is a very American thing to have little compassion for people who lose. In fact, the apallingly common use of the term "loser" is very syntomatic and hints at protestant ideology in the back of the American mind (yes yes, I super-over-generalize, but you get the idea).
One thing is clear, though: it is NOT OK to laugh at Rush (the band) -- they most definitely kick ass.
I agree with you too. I don't know if it's a American thing but I can say that people around me (I'm Quebecer)could not thing about laughing at him.
Many of the comments at Shakespeare's sister seem to fall within John Holbo's notion of "Poetic Justice as Fairness":
While you can certainly take Rush to task for his apparent hypocrisy, it's kind of difficult to both (a) think his views are repugnant, and (b) wish upon him what he has claimed to wish upon other drug users, without becoming something of a hypocrite yourself.
Call me glib, but I think people become assholes when they let their politics get in the way of their humanity.
That's a great way of putting it.
conchis, I really liked the Holbo post. It's definitely a tactic you see often. I'm not sure this is an instance of what he was talking about, but it's certainly close. This is more like "stooping to their level." "Hey, Limbaugh treats drug addicts like dirt, and that's wrong, so we can treat him like dirt for being an addict, and it's not wrong."
Give me a break. It is fun to laugh at a hypocrite like Rush who has made a career out of mocking other people's weakness and misfortunes. If he wasn't a wealthy wingnut he'd be going to jail. Laugh away.
anon, thank you for actually making the exact argument I attributed to the laughers in the previous comment. Even if my perspective is the wrong one, I at least know that I understand yours perfectly.
Not okay to laugh at Rush! Take off, eh?
But Limbaugh?
It's a comeuppance so I think it's natural for people to react this way to a point - but it's too bad he wasn't having some other kind of problem because it's causing stigma to perpetuate.
There's a chance it could all even out if Rush recovers and writes a book about how he was all wrong and America should provide compassionate treatment to addicts.
But how likely is that?
So, schadenfraude.
Are you being conservative? No, just rational. Stigma is a big problem.
I think it is possible to separate your feelings about Rush as a human being from your feelings about his character as...well, a hypocrite. And really, how much does it matter whether we laugh or not? It's not going to affect him. If you're concerned about the possible reflection on your character, then I would say that a state of conflict is a credit to you. But I too can't help but think at the same time "Oh my, that must be terrible for him" and "Ha! He deserves it."
anon, my own feelings don't really have to do with how it reflects on my character. I just feel strongly that no one deserves a drug problem, and that anyone's having one is a sad, not a funny thing. I suppose I have a different attitude towards suffering and revenge than most people, which is not to say that mine is the better attitude.
It's an interesting question. I don't care for Rush, but it's not really him personally (indeed I find him better than many of the talk hosts, left or right) Just that the whole style of "journalism" that creates strawmen of ones opponents and then demonizes them really, really bugs me. I think it's really contributing to ideas not really getting debated. I thought he was important back in the early days if only to get a dialog started. (In those days liberals were dominate and conservative ideas given short shrift) He's a popularizer, but I just can't handle the rhetoric.
But to the question, I have to admit I make fun on big name figures all the time. Sometimes very unfairly. Especially considering the situations they find themselves in. I'd certainly not want to be famous and fame on the young seems to have tremendously predictable and devastating effects on most. (You ought see if there are any cognitive explanations for that btw)
I suppose the hypocrisy though is in making fun of Rush but not in making fun of similar figures. But at the same time, if folks laugh at Clinton's "I didn't inhale" it seems hypocritical not to do the same of Limbaugh. I suppose the one exception one could make is that for people in chronic pain, especially with certain personalities, abuse of opiates is common. I had a friend with a back injury who got addicted. Then started using them recreationally. Then started abusing them. Then when he couldn't get them turned to other, far more harmful drugs and ended up on heroin. I'm not particularly a fan of current drug policy in the country. It all to often penalizes those who earnestly need pain killers. But at the same time there are a certain class of people who seem very prone to becoming addicts to legally prescribed drugs.
Whether that's what happened to Limbaugh I don't know. And, like my friend, the predictability of events doesn't excuse their personal responsibility. But I suspect the very fact he was famous, rich and powerful made addiction more likely, not less.
BTW - Is it really hypocrisy to attack something as wrong if one does it? Isn't hypocrisy more being guilty of some flaw or sin and denying it? Otherwise it seems few could condemn practices they themselves struggle with as wrong. Yet it seems arguably that this is something they ought do.
It would seem to me that an addict might well have good reason to attack and condemn drug use. And even the weakness of addicts.
But that's not hypocrisy.
I am disinclined to criticize addicts simply for being addicts. That doesn't mean I would excuse or tolerate some of the behaviors that result from being addicts (like, say, neglecting children, or violent behavior), but I recognize that there are so many factors that figure into whether a person becomes an addict, and that there are few of us who don't have the weaknesses that, under the right circumstances, might lead to us becoming addicts. Because of that, I just don't see addiction as something to be condemned. I see it as more of a medical disorder to be treated, though I do feel that people should be responsible for their behaviors even if they are under the influence (for example, I see drunk driving as one of the more heinous crimes).
But what I find so odious about people laughing at Rush, or anyone, for having a drug problem and getting in trouble for trying to acquire the drugs, is twofold: one, I just can't bring myself to laugh at anyone for genuine suffering (I can laugh at someone who's suffering, but not because they are suffering). Sure, I can laugh at someone for mild suffering (like embarassment, say), but not for real suffering. The second thing I find odious is the people doing the laughing: self-described liberals and progressives. These are people who should, by all accounts, understand that suffering is not something to be laughed at, even when the person suffering is someone you don't like. These are the people who, for example, find the torturing of terrorists unconscionable. Now, terrorists, by definition, have no problem causing other people suffering. So, by the same logic that laughing at Limbaugh is OK because he showed no sympathy for the suffering of other addicts, laughing at the suffering of terrorists, rather than decrying torture, should be OK.
I never listen to Rush, so I don't know whether he's worth making fun of or not.
Bush, though: what a rich source of humor!
Do you really think that the reason people are laughing at Rush is that he's suffering? Come on. They're laughing at him because he's getting his comeuppance.
You might consider the matter of proportion, too. Laughing at a powerful and nasty guy who has likely contributed to lots of other people's suffering -- and shows no inclination to stop -- is such a different thing from subsidizing or committing torture that the apparent quantitative difference arguably becomes a qualitative difference. What effect do you think all this laughter will have on ol' Rush? I promise, I at least will stop well short of organ failure.
So what's the difference between laughing at someone and scolding someone? Is one more palatable or effective than the other? I suspect you got the reaction you did, inaccurate as it was, because people no more like being scolded than they like being laughed at. (Um-hm, scolded like this.) I doubt anyone's demanding that you laugh, but telling others not to will get a predictable reaction, just like stepping on someone's sore toe.
And yeah, I think it qualifies as hypocrisy when he won't take the consequences he so freely prescribed for others. Have you heard of his retracting that yet?
If this be ressentiment, make the most of it.
ron, I don't mind being scolded. While I haven't changed my mind, I was and am genuinely interested in hearing what other people thought. I'm not so arrogant as to believe that my own moral intuitions are infallible ones.
The only thing I really disagree with in your comment is whether they're laughing at his suffering. They may not be laughing because he's suffering (though that's debatable), but they're definitely laughing at him for something that is a direct result of his drug problem, and that's what I find so offputting.
This is interesting.
I'm still not sure where the suffering comes into it. Does his back still bother him? I can't tell, and I kinda figured it doesn't. I don't know many people who are addicted to prescription drugs. I'm sure he's got a lot of internal psychological conflict about it, but is is that the sort of suffering you have in mind, or do you imagin a physical aspect to it that I'm missing? I say this not to parade my ignorance, but to demostrate the likely set of facts at hand for most people trying to evaluate this issue. Basically, when I think about painkiller-addiction, I don't think "Trainspotting", I think "pill-popping housewives" and both my empathy and sympathy are diminished. Much in the same way I imagine yours would be if Rush got nabbed for smoking pot instead. If you want to get your point across, you might want to tell people what you know, in detail, about painkiller addiction.
Which gets back to your point about "is liberalism just being compassionate towards people you like?" Everyone would agree that Rush should get a fair trial with due process and rights of the accused and all that fun liberal stuff. So one must draw the distinction between compassion on a personal level (which lefties tend to extend towards a greater percentage of the downtrodden, but not 100%) and "compassion" on a policy level that no one, no matter how monstrous, is denied certain things. The former motivates the latter, certainly, but it also means I personally don't have to have the visceral sympathy for Rush that I have for the Katrina victims.)
I also disagree with you about whether they're laughing at his suffering. His arrest is a result of his drug problem, not of his suffering. If the drugs gave him a violent seizure -- well, you'd still have some people laugh about it. But most people would be sober, because that's real pain. I think in this case, it's a combination of 1) Limbaugh is loathsome, 2) people not understanding what painkiller-addiction does, and 3) the consequences in question involve the indignities of the legal system, not painful medical problems.
I don't think that such kind of laugh can make anyone to feel happy...
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