My graduate student defended her thesis this week. It was about censorship in the American northeast at the end of the nineteenth century, but as I sat at the defense it was impossible for me not to think about the recent shootings in Arizona. Anthony Comstock, a crusader against vice, restricted access to the mails and harassed authors and publishers of books he believed might lead children astray. Comstock was engaged in a fin de siècle culture war, and his battles also turned violent. People ruined by his activities killed themselves; Comstock scuffled with his opponents. Ideas must often be reinforced by actions, but we should all this week deplore the use of weapons raised in pursuit of cultural aims.
I do not in any way wish to legitimize the insane ramblings of Jared Loughner. We spent much of my student’s defense talking about whether or not the written word should ever be restricted for the public good, and we acknowledged that both sides of that debate have been incited to violence. This cause has absolutely nothing in common with a troubled young man’s ideas about health care, or immigration, or currency, or the Constitution of the United States. But we are fooling ourselves if we do not see in Loughner the very manifestation of the furthest extent of the heated rhetoric prevalent in contemporary American culture wars.
I do not recognize in the United States today the country I began examining in my first American Studies class twenty years ago. In any dispassionate analysis, billions of dollars are now wasted by people just inches to the left or right of centre, uncompromising men and women who seek to convince their fellow citizens that failure to eradicate opposing points of view will mean cultural cataclysm. A cynical mind might conclude that the culture war is about nothing more than one group ensuring that its friends stay in charge in order to secure the lucre of the establishment.
Like many other commentators, I believe that too many people involved in American political discourse enjoy ratcheting up the rhetoric. Their adherents respond only to that degree of hyperbole. But, as Loughner’s behavior demonstrates, sick minds are not nimble enough to sort through the extremes of exaggeration. Cross-hairs, or surveyor’s symbols, might signify only metaphorical targets, but “second-amendment remedies,” sadly, can only look like the Safeway parking lot in Tucson.
I am not so naïve to believe that this rhetoric can be cooled: this tragedy is likely only to add to it. So, we rely on the expansion of approaches like those taken against Loughner by the administration of his community college. They protected their students and staff, but they could not protect the rest of us. And while it would not have helped a sick mind, the kind of training provided by higher education, the ability to navigate ones way through the white hot media maelstrom we all endure, is the only salve for what ails the national conversation.