I like books and movies about the Mafia and organized crime. GoodFellas is one of my favorite movies, and I almost subscribed to HBO, just so I could watch The Sopranos as the episodes came out.
One thing I’ve always found fascinating is the way mobsters handily beat up guys. In all the movies, it doesn’t matter who they have to rough up. They just do it and do it well. The mobster could face a bigger guy or a group of guys, and he takes care of business, sometimes without putting down his cigarette.
I have no idea whether these portrayals are realistic, but they’re believable. The mobster brings a key advantage to his fights: a willingness to ratchet up the violence without notice.
In GoodFellas, for instance, Henry Hill’s future wife calls him, terribly upset. She went on a date with a guy from her neighborhood, he made inappropriate moves on her, she resisted, and he got real angry and pushed her out of the car. Hill picks her up, drives her to her suburban middle class home, then walks across the street to confront the guy, who is working on his car with two friends. The guy walks up to Hill and challenges, “What you want, [vulgar noun]? You want something?” A millisecond later, Hill is pummeling the guy‘s face with the butt of a handgun. The other two guys are too stunned to say or do anything.
The neighborhood guy was probably expecting a fistfight, possibly one that would get defused with a little shoving and verbal abuse. But no. Hill immediately grabbed him by the hair and pistol whipped him. Hill’s radical and no-holds-barred approach won the battle (which lasted about twelve seconds). If the guy knew Hill was coming over with a gun or would start inflicting brain-damaging blows with no further provocation, he would’ve gone inside, grabbed a weapon, or started swinging as soon as Hill got up the driveway.
I’ve seen a similar thing in popular discourse, and it seems to be getting more popular. Although I haven’t watched him a lot, it seems to be a tool of cable TV’s hottest talk show host, Jon Stewart. On CNN’s old Crossfire, for instance, he was debating Tucker Carlson about the merits of the show. The discussion was a little unpleasant, but not too nasty. But then out of nowhere, Stewart called Carlson a vulgar name.
It was totally uncalled for. Funny yes, but completely out of proportion to the prior build-up, and it caught Carlson off-guard. Jon Stewart, bloggers and pundits raved, won the debate. I tend to agree, but it was primarily because of that verbal punch, not because of the merits of Stewart’s arguments. I’ve seen and heard other talk show hosts on TV and radio do similar things on their shows, using sudden and wicked quips to disable their interlocutors.
Some of it is clever, but too much of it is simply a slash-and-burn strategy. By assaulting a guest or opponent in a way that is out of proportion to the situation, the talk show host wins the battle, like Henry Hill in that suburban neighborhood.
Are such verbal assaults legitimate? Well, if popularity is a good indicator, yes. Go into the blogosphere and search for commentary about Jon Stewart. You’ll find a lot of admirers who love him and think he’s remarkably clever. (And perhaps he is, but then why does he need to rely on Mafia discourse tactics?)
I don’t think such verbal assaults are legitimate. The simple fact that they’re effective doesn’t make them right. It might be effective to shoot the neighborhood kid who keeps walking across your lawn. It might even feel great. But it’s still wrong, and it’s wrong because such a response lacks proportionality, and nothing is legitimate if it isn’t proportionate.
Every confrontational situation must be dealt with in a proportionate manner. It’s common sense that if the good effected by one’s action is not in proportion to the evil caused by one’s action, then the action is bad. It’s a regular thread in “just war” discussions, and it ought to be a regular thread in what constitutes just conduct in debate.
If for instance you respond to a person’s bad argument, there is a certain amount of risk involved: you must rise to a certain level of assertiveness with the accompanying risk of offending the other person, a potential for anger. But if the response will help the person see his error, you might accept that level of risk in exchange for that good. It’s a balancing test.
Unfortunately, balance is increasingly ignored in public discourse. I don’t know why. Some of it is no doubt the pursuit of fame: by stooping to uncivil behavior, the person looks cool to people who never outgrew middle school (which seems to be an increasing portion of the populace). Some of it is ideology: the slashing speaker hates the other side so much, he figures no attack can be disproportionate. Some of it is probably a simple lack of good upbringing and of awareness why such tactics are inappropriate.
I don’t have a proposal for eliminating it. I just want people to be aware of it and know why the verbal attackers ought not be admired — or watched, supported, or emulated.
© Copyright 2006 Catholic Exchange
Eric Scheske is an attorney, the Editor of The Daily Eudemon, a Contributing Editor of Godspy, and the former editor of Gilbert Magazine.
