A Spectre is Haunting America and that Spectre Is Sanity

I suppose the reason I'm annoyed at the upcoming Rally to Restore Sanity is a comment I overheard by an unknown girl 7 and a half years ago.   It was February of 2003 and the United States and its allies had issued an ultimatum to the dreaded Sadaam Hussein that he destroy weapons of mass destruction he did not have or else face destruction himself.  The rationale for this was that, if left alone, Sadaam Hussein might eventually use these weapons on his neighbors in a bid for power, so rather than cross that bridge if we came to it, we would endeavor to unseat him, which was the one thing that would guarantee Sadaam's use of the weapons of mass destruction (if he had them).   Of course, Sadaam Hussein could have saved us all a great deal of trouble by simply providing proof that he destroyed his weaponry and by assenting to every UN request for information.  But  he couldn't do this because, if he did, he would lose some of his power.  So, instead, he refused, which guaranteed that he would lose all of his power.

In the face of this reckless stupidity, these monstrous calculations by both sides,  I decided that I would join the Stop the War March and Rally in Boston and that I would skip class to do it.  The March failed in its stated objective, and was derided by virtually everyone in the media with a column or microphone or late night comedy show.  There were be puppets, Marxists, and bums, a whole carnival of misfits intermingling with more conventional lefties.  The whole thing was absurd and illogical and irrational. But still! What can you do when the whole world has gone mad? You have to scream back at it.

Evidently a girl at the walkway to a house around the 160s of Bay State Road disagreed. "I am protesting the war in an intelligent way" she said shortly before the scheduled beginning of the rally to a companion nodding in agreement "I am going to class."  "Alright, I get it," I thought.  The protest was going to be an exercise in futility, and so maybe the best way to oppose something like the Iraq war was to continue your education and be able to counter the arguments made by the relentless talking heads insisting at the necessity of war.  This is a cousin to the argument Jon Stewart makes today, that if we counter irrationality with rationality, our arguments will prevail in the end.

But if The Market is the false god of the hard right, Rationality is the false god of the soft left.  Of course there is room for and need of rationality in political discourse, but rationality, neat debate arguments, and ironic mocking of the other side aren't what ultimately feeds powerful political movements.  Rational argumentation is a tool, but ultimately nobody except the fussiest Yuppie is persuaded to join a movement because of rationality.  People are persuaded far more by sentiment, often by a deep sense of unfairness informed by their moral values.  The value of the rallies Stewart often mocks bring this sentiment to the attention of politicians and like minded people, and have power in that they fill people with a kind political euphoria that encourages them to work for the cause.  This might be closer to religion than rationality but it's what renews and powers our democracy.

The Anti-War rally in 2003 failed in its objective, and was even mocked by Stewart at the time for its carnival-like atmosphere, but it was a powerful and moving experience that collectively gave its attendees hope and a renewed sense of faith in their fellow Americans in those dark days.  It also gave us all the chance to express the deep sense of injustice at the action we were taking.  Attending the protest remains one of the proudest moments of my life, because there is nothing so noble as standing up for a just cause.

Perhaps the Rally to Restore Sanity will do that for its attendees, but I doubt it.  Great rallies and movements can't be built on ironic detachment, on the sense that people are silly for being upset at the government.  The satire that Stewart peddles is doubtlessly entertaining, but its the kind that makes people want to participate less in the various decidedly unironic activist movements.  I know Stewart claims that these activist movements are somehow the problem, and that if the moderate middle controlled things, we would somehow have better outcomes.  But the reason our politics are so insane is that the moderate middle by virtue of being wrapped up in themselves ("having other shit to do") doesn't care enough about civil and economic rights to stick with those principles even through difficult times.  It's that apathy and detachment that leads to the undesirable political outcomes, not passion and caring.  We need less "sanity" not more.