November 07, 2004
Post-Election Notes From The Blogosphere : Elizabeth Lane Lawley of mamamusings
by Liza Sabater
In c u l t u r e k i t c h e n: Post-Election Notes From The Blogosphere : Chris Bowers of MyDD, I pointed out how Chris Bowers' writing was characteristic of what I see as the language of codependency that afflicts so many blue pundits. Elizabeth Lane Lawley eloquently discovers this co-dependency in a personal context in mamamusings: democratic codependency.
Viewed through the filter of my recovery process, it feels as though the democrats are the co-dependents in this country, and the republicans are the addicts. We keep thinking if we just tell them they're doing the wrong thing that they'll see the error of their ways and change their behavior. But they won't at least not through our sheer forces of will or displays of rationality.
Hand-wringing will get us nowhere. Lessig is right --we need to let it go, and move forward. We need to fix ourselves before we try to repair those we see as misguided. We need to understand how we encourage and enable what looks to us like insanity. (One of the things that people in Al-Anon come to realize is that they often end up looking far more insane than the addict in their lives.)
So, what happens next? Me, I'm taking a break from political thought for a couple of weeks. And then I need to think hard about how I become a force for positive change, rather than simply a shrill critic of what I see that's wrong.
The only observation I have, again, is the insistence on framing change as a need to fix if not them, then us. I don't believe it is a question of fixing because it is an exercise in futility. What we need is a shift in actions. The progressive grassroots has already accomplish part of that shift through the creation of networks online and off. What we all agree with, thanks to Georges Lakoff that we need to reframe our way of speaking. It does not mean that we need to change our core values or fix ourselves to please Bushists. What it means, is that we need to be aware of how our speaking not only effects but, yes, creates the reality we live in.
The Reality-based community has to learn how to take responsibility for how they speak the world. That may be the most powerful, shifting action any political movement has ever undertaken.
Posted by Liza Sabater in 2004 Elections, Accountability, Language, Linguistics, Politics, Psychology, Rhetoric
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