By: what they do is who they are | hashtag tashlan

what they do is who they are | hashtag tashlan — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 13:46:07 +0000

[…] I wrote something in July about political grifters, left and right: an argument (over-compressed, over-allusive) that their adept way with words — their subtle deployment, and indeed understanding of, of the elaborate shibboleths of the tribe — is by no necessarily the conclusive tell for their motivation. The heart of a good con is that you’re hearing what you very much want to hear: the conman may or may not at some level also believe it himself (and please to note: they are by no means all men). The sentence “I love you” is not on its own proof that the speaker loves you (this useful example is Seth’s, by the way). Karl Rove and the Super-PAC American Crossroads; the people who built ORCA for Romney… what did these projects say but “I love you” to those whose money they took, in such eye-wateringly large amounts. […]

By: koganbot

koganbot — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 19:36:12 +0000

What’s the context of this? It seems like a quotation, and very reductive, and wrong. I doubt that nonintellectuals are better than intellectuals at understanding Mitt Romney (for instance).

The idea that people can be understood by us without our understanding how they understand themselves seems grievously wrong, even when the people we’re trying to understand are rich and venal.

Comments on: our morals and theirs

By: what they do is who they are | hashtag tashlan

By: koganbot