Discussion Forum (Archived)
Guest
Fresh Air contributer Geoff Nunberg ambiguously describes why he thinks he wins the bet against Grant Barrett in this recent piece.
Red and Blue States
While he SAYS he thinks it will be a tie, he tries to demonstrate why he'll win. My money's with Grant, at least for a ten-year duration.
As codes for the electoral maps, red and blue have been vocabulary fixtures ever since November 2000, and most likely will remain such, because what else can replace them?
However, they never did take root as cultural terms. For that, there need to be at least references to people- leftist, rightist, which never did happen with red and blue.
-------------
The article contains some odd word usages:
Those piled-on participials enabled you to ridicule liberal affections while conspicuously dropping your g's.
In retrospect, the whole "two Americas" business was mostly the narcissism of small differences...
In places of those bold words should be affectations, fixations.
Robert said: In places of those bold words should be affectations, fixations.
I'm not so sure about that. I also read the article Glenn linked. I think affections works as well as affectations (if I infer the meaning correctly). What it didn't get was the dropping your g's at the end of that sentence. All I could come up with is that some people, liberal or not, tend to pronounce words ending with "ing" as if they were ending with "in." Example: voting pronounced as votane. Kinda' the same thing as pronouncing electors as electers ... just careless or lazy diction.
In that second sentence, I think narcissism may be closer to the intended meaning than fixation (though both emotions are likely in play). From the context of the overall article, I think the author was sniping at the smugness of both reds and blues being proud of their perceived differences, regardless of how small those differences really are in practice.
I'm open to rebuttal on this, of course. But I'd be most interested in hearing what others think about that dropping your g's comment.
If you listen to the recording of this report, you will find that Mr. Nunberg actually says, "affectations." There is an error in the transcript. As far as narcissism or fixation goes, I think either can work. They both indicate being overly attentive to the object but narcissism includes a kind of love for it. Since this was pre-recorded with opportunities to re-record and eliminate any errors, I suspect Nunberg, being a linguist, said exactly what he meant.
The dropping of the g's can be careless and lazy diction, but it also suggests a casual, down-home folksiness. I think Nunberg is suggesting that critics of liberal pretention can bolster their arguments by appearing to be "just folks". (In the original ad none of the g's are dropped, and Nunberg drops only two: tax hikin', latte drinkin'.)
And it's no small matter; a recent (8/1/2014) article in Salon has this headline: "Peggy Noonan: America is divided because Obama is "out there dropping his g's". The WSJ columnist says the country can't come together until the president starts enunciating properly."
The article, by Simon Maloy, quotes Noonan refering to an aquaintance "who thinks America is going to break apart into red and blue factions." She goes on to criticize Obama: "He shouldn’t be out there dropping his g’s, slouching around a podium, complaining about his ill treatment, describing his opponents with disdain: 'Stop just hatin’ all the time.' ”
Notice that Noonan invokes red and blue as up-to-date markers of political schism. Nunberg's claim however is "The media still use "red" and "blue" when they're talking about the electoral map, but not for a deep cultural divide." As far as the Nunberg/Barrett smackdown goes, Grant might have the advantage.
Narcissism is all about the self of an individual: The Emperor has the narcissism of a child. But the above article is about the social observer's penchant for categorizing the behaviors of social groups. What can the word narcissism possibly be doing in there?
In any case, the phrase 'narcissism of small differences' is just extraordinarily exotic- should be 'fixations with small differences.'
Robert said
Narcissism is all about the self of an individual: The Emperor has the narcissism of a child. But the above article is about the social observer's penchant for categorizing the behaviors of social groups. What can the word narcissism possibly be doing in there?In any case, the phrase 'narcissism of small differences' is just extraordinarily exotic- should be 'fixations with small differences.'
I just realized how you are viewing this sentence and how it is different from what Nunberg meant. You are seeing the "social observer" as the one having either the fixation or the narcissism. In that case fixation would be the better choice, but it should probably be fixation on instead of fixation of. However, I believe that Nunberg meant to equate small differences with people who focus on small differences and it is those people (small differences) who look at themselves and their small differences with narcissism. I agree that it is "exotic" but that is subjective and I still believe that Nunberg said exactly what he meant.
"The narcisism of small differences" comes from Freud (Civilization and its Discontents, 1930): "...communities with adjoining territories, and related to each other in other ways as well...[engage] in constant feuds and in ridiculing each other -- like the Spaniards and Portuguese, for instance, the North Germans and South Germans, the English and Scotch, and so on...It is precisely the minor differences in people who are otherwise alike that form the basis of feelings of hostility between them.”
It seems to be a relatively common phrase (120,000 google hits for the exact term, over 11,000 references in 'books'). Christopher Hitchens used it to describe tensions between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, Indians and Pakistanis, Irish Protestant and Catholics. Michael Ignatieff analysed the Balkan wars using the same phrase, and Stephen Brooks (The Challenge of Cultural Pluralism) looks at how Canadians view Americans.
But why narcisism? Brooks says "Freud used the theory of Narcissus to explain why a person- and a people- can hate and deny resemblance to someone who, to all outward appearances, is quite similar to himself."
Dr. Joy Bliss, on the website Maggie's Farm, supplies this homely meatphor: "[Freud] viewed this as a narcissistic issue because the distress comes from looking in the mirror, as it were, and seeing a pimple."
Certainly in the original myth Narcissus was in love with his own reflection. But in modern usage "Narcisistic personality disorder" seems to be associated with self loathing as much as self love.
Please sit down everone! No standing needed, or correction intended. I'm not terribly familiar with Freud- or Michael Ignatieff either. It's just that the phrase "narcissism of small differences" rang a little bell, and then I went a-hunting on the Internet, and reading things I'd likely never have encountered. The Brooks book is fascinating, even with bits of it missing:
Onward!
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
1 Guest(s)