Are Liberal Ideas Harder to Communicate?
By Jonathan Rick Posted in Archived — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Rudy Giuliani is a Republican who holds the Democratic position on abortion. He's also a Catholic, which digs his hole even deeper, since various American bishops have threatened to deny him Holy Communion, as they did to John Kerry in 2004.
Most political strategists would advise Rudy to avoid the subject of communion at all costs, on the theory that there's no good way out of this minefield. A satisfactory answer would require either an encyclical or a Castro-length sermon, they posit.
Sorry, but that's dead wrong. Instead of obfuscating or tiptoeing around the issue, Rudy plunged headfirst into it, in the current issue of the New Yorker:
“They [the bishops] have every right to tell me anything they want,” Giuliani said to me. “But then I have every right to believe anything I want. And, ultimately, that sort of expresses both my political faith and my religious faith. They have a right to instruct me. And then, having my own conscience, and my own mind, and being my own individual person, I have a right to determine whether I agree with that or I don’t agree with it. Now, there are some people that look at religion differently. That’s the way I look at it. It’s a way that helps me understand morality better. It helps me understand God better. And ultimately it’s my relationship with God, my relationship with Jesus, that’s the important one. And I’ve got to figure it out. And if they help me they do. And if I don’t agree with it then I have to go with my own conscience.”
Thus, in just 152 words—to a reporter, no less—Rudy defused a tinderbox. He didn't pander, but spoke from his heart. Joe Klein would be proud.
Rudy’s homily is important because it disproves the conventional wisdom that Republicans are better communicators than Democrats, the thinking being that the nuance of clause-draped liberal ideas doesn't lend itself to sound bites (cf., "support the troops" vs. "pro-troop, anti-war"). As Stanley Fish has brilliantly elucidated, what matters is not the message but the messenger:
If you can't explain an idea or a policy plainly in one or two sentences, it's not yours. . . . Words are not just the cosmetic clothing of some underlying integrity; they are the operational vehicles of that integrity, the visible manifestation of the character to which others respond. And if the words you use fall apart, ring hollow, trail off and sound as if they came from nowhere or anywhere (these are the same thing), the suspicion will grow that what they lack is what you lack.
Indeed, a good communicator can always articulate his message, regardless of complexity and without compromising the integrity of his argument. Tom Friedman, a liberal columnist for the New York Times, is a master of this art, using simple metaphors, like The Lexus vs. the Olive Tree and The World Is Flat, to encapsulate big ideas.
Bear this in mind the next time someone carps that, say, Hillary Clinton's position on Iraq is too sophisticated to be simplified. It's not the position, it's the person, that's the problem.
Update: As soon as I finish praising him for being forthright, I read that he's clammed up. Asked last week at a town-hall meeting in Iowa if he is a "traditional, practicing Roman Catholic," Rudy retorted, "My religious affiliation, my religious practices and the degree to which I am a good or not so good Catholic, I prefer to leave to the priests."
Update (8/20/07): The more I think about it, the less I think there's a contradiction between the above two quotes. In short, some questions, like whether one is a good Catholic, are inappropriate, and it can be refreshing to hear a politician tell a questioner as much.
In fact, this is what Mitt Romney told a writer for the Atlantic Monthly last year, who asked if he wears Temple Garments—white underclothing, with the "Marks of the Holy Priesthood" sewn in, donned with reverence by the most faithful Mormons. "I'll just say those sorts of things I'll keep private," Romney sensibly replied.
liberal ideas are not easier to communicate. They're simply easier for a crowd to chant.
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
And I say that as a person who supports Bush on a lot of things and roots for him every day...
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We would also like to know your advice for somebody like my daughter, who's going to graduate in two years, advice that you would give a young person.
SEC. RUMSFELD: Advice for a young person. Study history.
While I agree whole-heartedly with Rudy's statements regarding religion (though from my younger, Catholic days, I would suggest that it's not a position that the Catholic Church itself shares), I don't think it's right to compare this position to Clinton's position on Iraq. As convoluted as it may sometimes seem, an individual's relationship with their religion is objectively far simpler than the many, many issues that surround the question of American involvement in Iraq (and the Middle East more generally). Could a better communicator convey all that needs to be conveyed in a pithy way? I certainly hope so, so though I don't think such a communicator has yet emerged. But a simple, common sense answer to the question of religion is hardly comparable.
but doesn't this:
“They [the bishops] have every right to tell me anything they want,” Giuliani said to me. “But then I have every right to believe anything I want. And, ultimately, that sort of expresses both my political faith and my religious faith. They have a right to instruct me. And then, having my own conscience, and my own mind, and being my own individual person, I have a right to determine whether I agree with that or I don’t agree with it. Now, there are some people that look at religion differently. That’s the way I look at it. It’s a way that helps me understand morality better. It helps me understand God better. And ultimately it’s my relationship with God, my relationship with Jesus, that’s the important one. And I’ve got to figure it out. And if they help me they do. And if I don’t agree with it then I have to go with my own conscience.”
basically mean that Rudy is a Protestant?
Maybe things have changed in the Catholic Church over the past few years but... I always understood the difference between Protestant and Catholic faiths to be the role of the church hierarchy in the relationship with God.
The direct personal model = Protestant.
The mediated model = Catholic.
Am I wrong in that perception?
-TS
"When men fear work or fear righteous war, when women fear motherhood, they tremble on the brink of doom; and well it is that they should vanish from the earth." - Teddy Roosevelt
Protestantism has forced a lot of Needed change into the Catholic Church in the last several hundred years.
It pretty much runs these days the ways that Rudy said.
"It's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die, and then dies...
...But if the man does know he's going to die and dies anyway. Dies, dies willing, knowing he can stop it, then...
Well, isn't that the type of man you want to keep alive?"
Karen Eiffel, Stranger Than Fiction
While all Christians understand that they each answer to God alone, my Roman Catholicism is a tops-down church model, whereas I believe Protestants are bottoms-up, including electing ministers and other clergy, the ultimate example being the Prime Minister of England naming the Archbishop of Canterbury.
I have the benefit of seven years of grammar school education courtesy of the Sisters of St. Joseph, the most brilliant and patient women ever to serve the Lord, and then four years of high school education courtesy of the Society of Jesus a/k/a the [dreaded] Jesuits, smart men, but a bit off the deep end then and always.
The subject of when conscience conflicts with the Church, or even when conscience apparently excuses behavior that no one else would accept, came up more than once. The explanation that the good Sisters gave was "when someone has beaten or atrophied their conscience into silence, that does not constitute a justification to act on that conscience".
Giuliani can declare his conscience to justify whatever he wants. And, being a free country, he can call himself a Catholic, but that does not make him a Catholic. Unfortunately, the Church manifestly has a policy of not publicly declaring individuals not Catholics, i.e., to excommunicate them. Hence we have the circus of numerous "Catholics" publicly behaving in ways that are in inarguable contradiction to the inviolable rules of Catholicism, and for this I blame the clergy, right up to the Holy Father. I don't blame the false "Catholics".
so it is possible then to be a non-practicing Catholic the way one could be a non-observant Jew?
-TS
"When men fear work or fear righteous war, when women fear motherhood, they tremble on the brink of doom; and well it is that they should vanish from the earth." - Teddy Roosevelt
Catholic is not an ethnic identity. It is a religious creed and system to which you give assent or don't.
I can't really beat Frank Natoli, except to say that the essential component of Catholicism -- the process, not the substance -- is submitting to things that are doctrinally defined, even when they rub up against you. I have one darned hard time with the Immaculate Conception for a host of theological reasons, but no one asked me when formulating the dogma, so I have to accept it and move on. I don't have to accept if the Pope says the Sun rose in the West today, but I do have to accept that Christ and the Father are one in being and one in substance.
Make sense?
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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!
Great post.
But is it really the Immaculate Conception that you have a "hard time" with? Or the virgin birth? If you are willing to accept that "by the power of the Holy Spirit, He became man", then it seems to me a lesser stretch to accept that Mary was conceived without original sin, which of course is the original [pun intended] suffering the sins of the fathers on the sons [and daughters].
Let's kick around the Church's doctrine on artificial birth control. I have two children aged 31 and 26. The fact that the number is neither zero nor ten should allow you to make a reasonable inference regarding my decision on practicing artificial birth control. Regardless of that inference, I understand very clearly the logic of the Church's doctrine in this matter. First and foremost, the Church regards a natural process as one guided if not controlled by God, and therefore not to be tampered with by mortal man. But secondly, and more nuanced, the Church understood that sex was procreation first, fun second. Not no fun, but not fun over procreation. Artificial birth control not only reversed the relationship, but in Western countries virtually created a no procreation culture. Along with the fun first and foremost, we get, free of charge, our 24x7 sex drenched culture, with hardly a TV program or movie without wildly gratuitous T&A and promiscuous relationships. So as much as a party pooper the Church tries to be on this particular subject, it knew what was going to happen long before it did.
So, Frank, when are you going to write your own nomination for beatification, you righteous SOB? Not anytime soon. I think that great blond enforcer goddess, Ann Coulter, got it exactly right in an interview witwh the London Daily Telegraph a few years ago. At the time, she had an intimate "relationship" with a man, I believe of Middle Eastern / Arab origin, and the interviewer asked whether as a conservative she felt hypocritical about that (the intimacy, not the national origin). She replied something on the order of conservatives admit that there is sin, and that they are often sinners, but liberals refuse to admit that there is sin. Now back to my words, not hers, that is because liberals do not accept an ultimate authority, a Great Judge, or practically any judge at any level. That is the most consequential difference between conservatives and liberals, and the one that makes me most proud to be a conservative, sinner and all.
It's absolutely against Redstate policy to recommend your own blog.
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“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan