Gentlemen, to evil!
Feb. 5th, 2006 10:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatI noticed Sean Hannity's book Deliver Us From Evil at the library today, so I paged through a little, suspecting to find something that would piss me off. And sure enough, on p. 260, I saw this gem:
"Liberals believe that if you remove the root causes of crime, such as poverty or absentee parents or drug abuse, then you can end crime. We conservatives, on the other hand, believe that crime is a choice made with free will--that some individuals choose the path of evil, regardless of whether they are rich or poor. Furthermore, just as labeling Hitler or Saddam a 'madman' is a dangerous distraction from the reality of their evil behavior, we contend that searching out 'root causes' for a crime merely serves to provide the criminal with an excuse for his behavior."
Why the word "madman" (which I've rarely heard used in recent discourse, mind you) is "a dangerous distraction," while "evil" (which Hannity uses twice in this excerpt, as well as in the book's title) isn't is beyond me. They both strike me as loaded but largely meaningless words. Hannity also uses an obvious straw man argument in an attempt to discredit the other side (Oh, those crazy, deluded liberals, thinking they can END crime!), and then goes on to insist that conservatives NEVER want to locate the causes of crime (presumably because this would mean providing resources to poor people). Way to oversimplify, Sean!
Now, on to two other things I've been thinking about that bother me and DON'T have anything to do with Fox News personalities:
1. Pre-faded T-shirts. I just can't understand this trend. It's even more annoying when the shirt is something I might like if it WEREN'T pre-faded. I remember when Hot Topic was selling Nintendo shirts, and they had a pretty cool Luigi shirt, but it was pre-faded. If I like a shirt, I'll usually wear it after the picture and/or color has faded. But I at least want to have a period of time when the picture is actually clear! While I'm not a sharp dresser or a particularly neat person by any stretch of the imagination, I don't understand why you'd want to PURPOSELY look sloppy.
2. When people say things like, "Oh, I don't know math, because I'm an English major," or whatever. This one doesn't bother me THAT much, but isn't part of the reason why most of us receive liberal arts educations so that we can have at least a cursory knowledge of other disciplines? We all have our own strengths and weaknesses, and I don't expect everyone to be good at math, or English, or science, or history, or what-have-you. I just don't see "well, that's not the subject I'm concentrating in" as a valid excuse. I remember seeing a reference (probably in The Annotated Alice) to how Lewis Carroll might well have been mocking this kind of stereotype when Humpty Dumpty, who was presented as a linguist, is incapable of subtracting one from 365. So I guess it's been around for some time.
"Liberals believe that if you remove the root causes of crime, such as poverty or absentee parents or drug abuse, then you can end crime. We conservatives, on the other hand, believe that crime is a choice made with free will--that some individuals choose the path of evil, regardless of whether they are rich or poor. Furthermore, just as labeling Hitler or Saddam a 'madman' is a dangerous distraction from the reality of their evil behavior, we contend that searching out 'root causes' for a crime merely serves to provide the criminal with an excuse for his behavior."
Why the word "madman" (which I've rarely heard used in recent discourse, mind you) is "a dangerous distraction," while "evil" (which Hannity uses twice in this excerpt, as well as in the book's title) isn't is beyond me. They both strike me as loaded but largely meaningless words. Hannity also uses an obvious straw man argument in an attempt to discredit the other side (Oh, those crazy, deluded liberals, thinking they can END crime!), and then goes on to insist that conservatives NEVER want to locate the causes of crime (presumably because this would mean providing resources to poor people). Way to oversimplify, Sean!
Now, on to two other things I've been thinking about that bother me and DON'T have anything to do with Fox News personalities:
1. Pre-faded T-shirts. I just can't understand this trend. It's even more annoying when the shirt is something I might like if it WEREN'T pre-faded. I remember when Hot Topic was selling Nintendo shirts, and they had a pretty cool Luigi shirt, but it was pre-faded. If I like a shirt, I'll usually wear it after the picture and/or color has faded. But I at least want to have a period of time when the picture is actually clear! While I'm not a sharp dresser or a particularly neat person by any stretch of the imagination, I don't understand why you'd want to PURPOSELY look sloppy.
2. When people say things like, "Oh, I don't know math, because I'm an English major," or whatever. This one doesn't bother me THAT much, but isn't part of the reason why most of us receive liberal arts educations so that we can have at least a cursory knowledge of other disciplines? We all have our own strengths and weaknesses, and I don't expect everyone to be good at math, or English, or science, or history, or what-have-you. I just don't see "well, that's not the subject I'm concentrating in" as a valid excuse. I remember seeing a reference (probably in The Annotated Alice) to how Lewis Carroll might well have been mocking this kind of stereotype when Humpty Dumpty, who was presented as a linguist, is incapable of subtracting one from 365. So I guess it's been around for some time.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 04:37 am (UTC)Hmm. I'm not bad at maths because I'm an English major, but I think I tend to say "I'm bad at maths. I'm an English major." Certainly I think that many people are either good at Maths or English, (there's that whole left brain/right brain theory) and a lesser amount are good at both. I generally say "I'm bad at maths. I'm an English major," because I don't want it to seem like I'm completely useless. Yes, yes I am terrible at maths, but look at my adept power of wordocity!
When you do an arts degree at my univsersity (as I did), you don't even do any maths or science - they're all humanities or languages based subjects. I actually think I prefer the American system where it's complusory to do a year of general subjects, correct?
As for Sean Hannity - they sound immensely foolish, with a warped idea of what it means to be both liberal and conservative. Also, they suck.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-06 09:47 pm (UTC)I don't think there is a universal "Amercian system". Basically every university has it's own requirements with some very general requirements for anyone who offers a BS, or BA in a particular subject. A friend of mine, a computer science major at a large engineering school took classes like "human computer interactions" and "ethical issues in computing" to fulfill his humanities requirement.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 03:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-07 03:52 am (UTC)When you do an arts degree at my univsersity (as I did), you don't even do any maths or science - they're all humanities or languages based subjects. I actually think I prefer the American system where it's complusory to do a year of general subjects, correct?
As the anonymous commenter said, it varies. My school definitely required students to take a lot of general subjects, although I managed to place out of math by taking the AP Calculus test in high school. But I wasn't even thinking entirely of colleges and universities. It's typical to learn the basics of most of the subjects I mentioned in primary and secondary school. But then, I'm the type who remembers obscure things I learned in school, and other people either didn't learn or have long since forgotten (like what a verbal is, for instance).